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?

    • Crying4625@lemmy.mlOP
      1·
      7 months ago

      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

  • Zier@fedia.io
    12·
    7 months ago

    I’m running Kubuntu on less than that on a desktop and it works just fine.

  • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
    12·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • stoy@lemmy.zip
    11·
    7 months ago

    If you are still using X, get Fluxbox, very lightweight, requires some config, but that is fairly easy.

  • LeFantome@programming.dev
    9·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
    7·
    7 months ago

    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.

  • cerement@slrpnk.net
    92·
    7 months ago
    • 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
    • Crying4625@lemmy.mlOP
      5·
      7 months ago

      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

      • folkrav@lemmy.ca
        4·
        7 months ago

        I seem to remember hearing about Plasma having similar memory usage to XFCE. Don’t quote me on that lol

        • krash@lemmy.ml
          1·
          7 months ago

          Got any guides on how to strip plasma down to the bare necessities? I have it on a machine with 4 GB RAM, but I don’t know how to optimize it for such old hardware.

  • Sina@beehaw.org
    5·
    7 months ago

    A window manager like i3 or Openbox. If you are curious what that’s like, then try out Bunsenlab Linux. (XFWM4 is also a great choice, but it requires some know how to properly rip out the rest of Xfce, like the relatively heavy desktop and the panel)

  • kbal@fedia.io
    4·
    7 months ago

    Does Xfce count as light? It’s got plenty of features. Should fit in 4gb well enough though.

  • robber@lemmy.ml
    3·
    7 months ago

    Does not answer your question, and someone already mentioned it in a thread, but don’t forget zram when only 4GBs are available.