Hello there. I’m a beginner so keep that in mind. I have an old laptop (something like 10 yo). It has an HDD, 4 gigs of DDR3, an i3 4th gen 1.7
GHz and an NVidia Geforce 710M (Windows Game Ready Driver 391.35 WHQL which I think doesn’t support Wayland). It also has CSM BIOS so yeah. It has the option of UEFI but the GeForce (I think) doesn’t support it.

Currently, it has Windows 10 on it, but it has been veeeeery sluggish. I’m planning to upgrade the RAM to 8 gigs and upgrade to an SSD, but (even if I upgrade those parts) I don’t want to use Windows anymore, at all.

So, I have a few options. (kinda in order)

Linux Mint
Fedora, though idk if the 2 GHz requirement is a big problem
Pop!_OS
MX Linux
Debian
Ubuntu and its flavors
Zorin OS
and maybe Solus? though the same problem with fedora.

Yeah yeah ik, all of these except Fedora and Solus are Debian/Ubuntu based.

DE options: (again, also kinda in order)

KDE Plasma (love the looks of it, though is my hardware enough?)
Cinnamon
XFCE - LXDE - LXQT (because of “lightweightness” :D)
Budgie
5. GNOME too heavy
These are some options for me. If you have any more suggestions, let me know. Also, are there any compatibility issues with my system for the distros/DEs?

Thanks for the replies in advance.

(Note: this was also posted in the m/linux@kbin.social magazine and the r/linux4noobs subreddit. don’t ask why im still on reddit, it’s because of Infinity for reddit.)

(Another note: If you saw this post before, it’s because of /kbin’s issues. I reposted it because no one saw it before.)

  • Lucia@eviltoast.orgEnglish
    301·
    1 year ago

    So, I have a few options. (kinda in order)

    Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list, but all of them except Solus are fine. I personally recommend Mint or Debian, Debian Sid if you want latest kernel.

    KDE Plasma (love the looks of it, though is my hardware enough?)

    KDE should work fine, maybe with a bit of tweaking?

    XFCE - LXDE - LXQT (because of “lightweightness”)

    I daily drive Xfce and even on a beefy PC this DE is really great. It may not look cool by default, but it’s very customizable and powerful. And Thunar (xfce file manager) is really good now.

    Cinnamon

    Another good option

    it’s because of Infinity for reddit.

    There’s a fork of infinity for Lemmy, called Eternity. Not sure if it’s usable now though.

    • rambos@lemm.ee
      3·
      1 year ago

      Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list

      I have to try mint, so many people recommend it and its hard to believe something can be easier than popos

      • Lucia@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Mint is great, my brother used it as his first distro and had no issues whatsoever while I suffered with Fedora.

      • Lucia@eviltoast.orgEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        I doubt they need the latest kernel, their machine is ancient…

        True

        FIFY

        Thanks, somehow messed it up.

    • Sucuk@kbin.socialOP
      1·
      1 year ago

      Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list, but all of them except Solus are fine. I personally recommend Mint or Debian, Debian Sid if you want latest kernel.

      No, I don’t really need it.

      KDE should work fine, maybe with a bit of tweaking?

      I thought about that too. If that doesn’t work out, Xfce/LXDE/LXQT it is.

      • entropicdrift@lemmy.sdf.org
        3·
        1 year ago

        Try Mint Cinnamon, if that’s slow try disabling animations. If it’s still slow, go to XFCE.

        Mint really rocks at not requiring you to use the terminal almost ever. For sure the best choice in the “just works” category.