Background: I am a lifelong Windows user who is planning to move to Linux in October, once Microsoft drops support for Windows 10. I use a particularly bad laptop (Intel Celeron N3060, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 64 GB eMMC storage).
I do have some degree of terminal experience in Windows, but I would not count on it. If there are defaults that are sensible enough, I’d appreciate it. I can also configure through mouse-based text editors, as long as there is reliable, concise documentation on that app.
So, here’s what I want in a distro and desktop environment:
- Easy to install, maintain (graphical installation and, preferably, package management too + auto-updating for non-critical applications)
- Lightwight and snappy (around 800 MB idle RAM usage, 10-16 GB storage usage in a base install)
- Secure (using Wayland, granular GUI-based permission control)
I have narrowed down the distributions and desktop environments that seem promising, but want y’all’s opinions on them.
Distributions:
- Linux Mint Xfce: Easy to install, not prone to randomly break (problems: high OOTB storage usage, RAM consumption seems a little too high, kind of outdated packages, not on Wayland yet)
- Fedora: Secure, the main DEs use Wayland (problems: similar to above except for the outdated packages; also hard to install and maintain, from what I have heard)
- antiX Linux (problems: outdated packages, no Wayland)
Desktop Environments:
- Xfce: Lightweight, fast, seems like it’d work how I want (problems: not on Wayland yet, that’s it)
- labwc + other Wayland stuff: Lightweight, fast, secure (problems: likely harder to install, especially since I have no Linux terminal experience, cannot configure through a GUI)
In advance, I thank you all for helping me!
I appreciate any help, especially in things like:
- Neofetch screenshots, to showcase idle RAM usage on some DEs
- Experiences with some distributions
I’ve had Fedora updates screw up so many times and spent way too many hours fixing mutually conflicting updates that I have really come to loath the OS. I keep a Fedora server running for my customers who are Redrat enthusiasts but Ubuntu is so much better behaved.
Just use Linux Mint, cinnamon edition, and then edit the startup app list to not load some of the stuff that take too much ram, like the reports, nvidia, etc. Also remove fwupd if you updated your laptop’s firmware already via windows. I personally also stop bt (frees overall 30 mb of ram). Make sure during installation that you create a 4 GB swap partition too. At the end, I have a system that starts up at 750 MB of RAM (htop reading, 980 MB with gnome-system-monitor). As long as I use only 2-3 Chrome tabs, I’m ok to not swap. Firefox uses more ram i’m afraid, especially with youtube.
I have 4 laptops here run linux mint with 4 gb of ram. They run fine, my husband even does development in one of these.
The n3060 cpu is slow at 660 PassMark points, just enough for Mint to function. XFce is a tad faster indeed, and uses about 60 MB less RAM, however, it’s missing some desktop options that I find useful (e.g. disabling tap and drag).
Yeah this is the way. Debian stable has outdated packages, debian testing has broken packages. Ubuntu is difficult for beginners because of snap. Linux mint is the perfect just-works debian-based beginner distro. Same for DE: Gnome is hard to use, KDE is bloated and unstable, and XFCE is too minimalist/diy/quirky for beginner users (you need to add a panel applet in order for the volume keys to work? Huh??). Cinnamon is the perfect middle ground between resource usage and features.
Make sure during installation that you create a 4 GB swap partition too
Or at least as large as your RAM if you want to be able to hibernate.
What do you prefer? Linux allows multiple desktops to be installed. I use Mate primarily but I also have lxde installed as a backup in case something breaks.
I prefer something that has the same functional layout as Windows, but is as lightweight and minimal as possible (a Windows XP-like Start Menu is fine, I just need something that is configurable enough and doesn’t blow up my laptop).
I am not sure that using Wayland is your best choice here. Based on laptop specs it is not like you are going to game on it. And for web and office tasks x11 still offers a better experience. On Wayland you would have problems with things like scaling, screen capturing etc. They are (to some extend) solvable, but are tricky to fix, especially with your lack of terminal experience.
Also I would not care that much for cutting-edge repositories. They are usually required for support of the new hardware (which of cause is not the case here).
Also, almost all modern DE are somewhat the same in terms of resource consumption. Some are a bit heavy (for example Cinnamon is heavier than xfce) but the difference if almost negligible. The majority of resources would be consumed by a browser, not DE. If you still wish to have the lightest DE possible, than you are limited to LXQT. XFCE nowadays is not as light as it used to be. You can have a very good performance with window managers like openbox and alike. For panel you can use polybar, tint or whatever. But that would require some configuration from you. Such setup is available in MX Linux. I suggest you to take a look at that distro, it is kinda good for old laptops. Of cause, standalone Wayland compositors (sway, hyprland, labwc, wayfire etc.) are very good, but they would require you to do a lot configuration work to set everything working. Even distros that ship them preinstalled (like Fedora Sway spin, for example) have somewhat broken defaults.
Thanks for this kind answer! I might game a bit on it (I am probably going to be the last person to stop playing Minecraft 1.8.9), but I don’t know how much better Wayland is. I can tinker a bit of the settings, but not too much. I also have another laptop that has half the specs (but a better CPU, for some reason) that I might use as a lab rat.
The main problems with gaming on x11 are:
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Screen tearing. You can check YouTube for how it looks.
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Latency in x11 is significantly higher.
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HDR support. X11 does not support HDR. But I doubt you laptop supports it either.
I do not believe that problems 1 and 2 affect minecraft that much. They are mostly prominent in games like first-person-shooter and alike.
Also, note that Minecraft itself does not support wayland. This means that it would run under x11 that would run under wayland (with both x11 and Wayland problems combined).
I do play Minecraft 1.8.9 competitively, but would using Wayland help with that?
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@thatonecoder unless i missed it, it looks like no one suggested puppy linux! it’s very light and some variants (bookworm pup) has wayland options (32 bit and xorg options as well) and full apt usage.
What use cases are you planning for it? I mean, antiX would totally rock on that machine. However having Wayland, being lightweight and easy to maintain is kinda tough to find. Lose Wayland part, it’s antiX. Lose lightweight part, it’s Pop OS, openSUSE Leap, etc. Lose easy to maintain part (for a newbie), it’s Arch (mostly derivatives that come with a GUI installer).
Though if I was preparing that device for someone else, I would probably go with LMDE.
Web browsing, writing, playing Minecraft, and maybe some more things.
I see. In that case I see no reason not to use antiX. It’s so lightweight it can run well on a 20 year old laptop. You don’t need latest drivers to play Minecraft (you can install them if you want like on any Debian base but there is no need for that). antiX is also easy on hard drive space since it’s smaller than most distros.
I would recommend slackware or devuan with xfce or lxde
When in doubt: Linux Mint.
You can find something more suitable for your need later on, but this should give you a baseline experience.
I would steer clear of labwc or other minimalist WMs when you’re just getting started. In fact, try nothing but the basics first.
Try a few live disks out. See what works best with your hardware and workflows. I like Fedora with KDE Plasma, personally. But I prefer RHEL based to Debian based stuff and I don’t like the direction Ubuntu is beimg taken for monetization.
Why do people recommend mint xfce over cinnamon? Is not the cinnamon version better for a newbie?
I think because: 1: I have a tiny bit of technical experience, although none with a Linux system. That’s enough to use something more advanced 2: Cinnamon is basically on par with KDE, in terms of performance, which is not good at all, since my laptop’s specifications are particularly sub-par.
If your laptop can run w10 at all, it will run mint cinnamon very well
Okay, I do not have enough knowledge about the current version of XFCE. I only know that the look of XFCE was super outdated if you do not tweak it. I cannot say if it is solved or not today.
Yeah, it does feel like Windows XP, but that’s also the beauty of it - I can customize it using the graphical editors, since the UI is not confusing, just outdated.
I think XFCE Mint is a good experience. That said, depending on how W10 has been running for you, Cinnamon won’t be worse than that.
Not that bad - the start menu opens in about 2 seconds, but some apps can take much longer (highly depends, but up to 6-10 seconds). I can easily work with a minimal, Windows 9x layout, if that means I will get a significant performance boost.
I think your assessment of Linux Mint with XFCE is a really good first choice. Cinnamon could be worth a try though as the UI is a bit more modern looking. I’m biased towards XFCE because it looks fine and runs extremely well on old laptops. I’ve got a laptop from 2008 running it (it’s my only computer that still has a disc drive) and it’s honestly a usable machine again.
As a complete newbie with those specs, I’d try Mint Xfce edition.
LMDE. And this is as someone who has used a ton of distro over the years and now just rolls that whenever asked. I prefer the Debian Edition; Mint feels hacky in comparison, almost like snaps and stuff have been ripped out to make the distro something it is not…
I personally recommend Mint, but ultimately others will have different opinions and you decide what you want.
I’ve tried many desktop environments: Flux, Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate, Enlightenment, OpenBox, TWM, and screens. Naturally, Gnome prevailed. I can’t resist a system that allows for endless tweaking.
I can’t resist a system that allows for endless tweaking.
So you actually chose KDE, right?
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