I want to revive an old Lenovo laptop with an AMD A6 2.6GHz and 4GB ram, what would be the best option for a DE?
You must log in or register to comment.
I usually go with Xfce.
deleted by creator
Wayland development is also well under way for Xfce.
I was debating myself between those 2. I like xfce, and they announced recently that they have plans to move to Wayland but maybe I’ll give LXQT a try to see what it is like. Thanks for the answer
I think XFCE has way more themes etc. Both are extremely themable though.
PSA no matter how light your distro, any modern app or webpage will use all that power
That’s fast enough to run the latest Linux Mint with Cinnamon. I have two laptops with the exact same cpu speed (passmark score) and 4 GB of ram. With 2 GB swap file you will be in business.
Oh, that’s pretty neat info. I’m more of an Arch user but I might give Linux mint a try now that I know that. Thanks
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Cinnamon Cinnamon is available for Arch, would be the same or better
- the big guns: Gnome or Plasma
- the middle tier: Xfce or LXQt
- the lightweights: tiling window managers (and there’s a LOT to choose from)
- the alternative crowd: Mate, Cinnamon, Regolith
OP asked for desktop env, and tiling window managers are… Well only window managers and not desktop environments…
I like MATE. It feels familiar. (I’m a GNOME user 😅)
I think gnome and KDE Plasma are just too heavy. And I would use a WM if it was for me, in fact that what I use in my daily driver but it is for someone not that tech savvy. I may check one from the alternative crowd tho. Thanks for the answer
Try KDE Plasma, you can strip out a ton of it, for example XOrg entirely, baloo, animations, etc.
plasma is surprisingly performant
I seem to remember hearing about Plasma having similar memory usage to XFCE. Don’t quote me on that lol
I’m running Kubuntu on less than that on a desktop and it works just fine.
If you don’t need a full desktop environment, check-out IceWM.
I recently checked-out Trinity ( essentially KDE 3 modernized ) and was surprised how decent it was. I used it in Q4OS but it may be available in your distro.
I use IceWM on antiX. Seems to be a good mix of low resource usage and aesthetics.
Its fairly difficult to find “up-to-date” performance / RAM comparisons of Linux Desktop environments, but here’s a decent one from 2019 comparing memory usage of different Ubuntu flavors.
The most surprising thing is that despite KDE Plasma’s reputation as being more ram-hungry, it actually used less ram than XFCE, meaning its developers have been making performance a focus.
If you are still using X, get Fluxbox, very lightweight, requires some config, but that is fairly easy.
+1 for Fluxbox!
It’s such an underrated WM
Yeah, unfortunately it seems like it will not get a Wayland version though…
Yeah……… I wish someone would port it or come out with something similar. Been using Blackbox/Fluxbox since the 2000’s
There are many options, but I’d say on those specs anything will run more or less fine with some tweaks/settings.
Personally I would go with KDE Plasma, because I feel most comfortable with it. It can be pretty light on system ressources when configured properly. Disable all the visual stuff (animations, blur, anti aliasing) and some of it’s background modules (baloo and some other stuff that you personally don’t need).
But you should take the one you are familiar with and find out how you can tweak it to be more light. Cheers
I have tested KDE plasma in my main pc for a few weeks now and the ram consumption seems pretty high and have too many options. I’m looking for something light and easy to use (not many options) since the pc is going to be used by someone not very tech savvy.
Measuring RAM usage is extremely tricky, because programs will use more than they need, if there is lots of unused RAM available. Check out https://www.linuxatemyram.com if you want to learn more.
For me KDE Plasma uses over a gig on my main PC after a fresh boot. But it also ran perfectly fine on a 512MB ancient laptop.
Xfce
Does not answer your question, and someone already mentioned it in a thread, but don’t forget zram when only 4GBs are available.
Does Xfce count as light? It’s got plenty of features. Should fit in 4gb well enough though.
If xfce doesnt count as light I don’t know what would
Well when I used tu it like 12 years ago it was very light. I’ll have to check now. Thanks for the answer
I would go mx linux fluxbox
XFCE or LxQT but i have a preference for XFCE if it is for normal use.
Same. Mostly because I used to run XFCE some years ago, but I might give LXQT a try. Thanks
