I chose Debian 12 as a solid and stable base. Which of these shipped DEs is the best for this particular laptop series and Windows 10 like user experience?
GNOME 43, KDE Plasma 5.27, LXDE 11, LXQt 1.2.0, MATE 1.26, Xfce 4.18
Don’t know the exact laptop model and year, but here are some specs: IdeaPad, only HDD, DVD drive, shipped with Win 8 or 10 (I think), unbearably slow on Win 10 currently
Use case: office, web, movies (not streaming), things for non-tech-savvy users
Personally, I’m using Arch btw with KDE Plasma 6 on Wayland, so I would prefer this over other DEs, but Debian still ships version 5. Has anyone experience with performance on an old Lenovo laptop with any of the listed environments?
Why don’t you let them choose?
If I’m not wrong, Fedora as stable release too will ship Plasma 5 in next month, they’re doing tests now.
The Fedora 40 KDE spin and Fedora Atomic KDE will be shipping with KDE Plasma 6 in April, not KDE Plasma 5. Plasma 5 was released 10 years ago, and Debian won’t be shipping Plasma 6 until at least Debian 13, which is probably sometime in 2025.
For casual users I typically recommend using Cinnamon Desktop, it’s the most Windows-esque UI and will be the easiest for them to pick up and use.
I roll with Cinnamon on Ubuntu and it’s been extremely painless, very simple to get stuff do and shit just works.
I was going to recommend the same: what I love about Cinnamon is the fact that has less theming and customization features (compared to other DEs).
While this might seem bad for experienced users, it is perfect for new people: I don’t want my dad to call me on a saturday morning because he accidentally erased the menu button or things like that
Gnome is simple. Gnome is native for GTK apps, which are majority. You can turn on classic taskbar, turn off virtual spaces, add minimize button and it is now a classic user experience.
I don’t understand this obsession with Wayland vs X11.
On Arch I choose Gnome and the underlying technology is picked for me based on hardware of the machine.
I recall having X11, because I had nVidia card. I bought AMD video card and it started to run Wayland without any effort on my side. It was a while ago.
Arch would require you to make more decisions, which may lead you into the woods. Use Manjaro, which made Arch tech decisions for you like choice of network management stack.
I tried Manjaro last week on laptop. It has a polished user experience. Pick to use non-free drivers. Use Libre Office instead of free office. Install Firefox and chromium. Done.
Gnome just added full search and it is included in Arch and shall be in Manjaro in less than 2 weeks.
The advantage with rolling release for your parents is that you will never run install again. You will never need to upgrade version of Debian or Ubuntu. Just update OS every time you visit them, no more frequent than once every few months, not less than twice a year.
Manjaro has polished software installation experience at graphical user interface level.
Manjaro is amongst the worst distros for advanced users, giving it to beginners is a complete mistake, they shipped an update that uninstalled the DE
Gnome won’t break. If you don’t want them calling you up in the middle of a work day saying, “why did the bar at the bottom of the screen disappear!?” or “Berny, my screen turned black!”, install Gnome
Debian is old and full of bugs. “Stable” means you are stuck with faulty, but known-state software. To have a carefree distro where you don’t need to assist at all I recommend Bazzite (it’s not just for gamers). Tested updates are applied automatically
Misinformed.
At least when I used Mint, PopOS, PureOS and Ubuntu Server (all Debian based) I always ran into package issues which were already fixed by the devs months or even years ago. I just couldn’t be on that newer version
The Plasma desktop is well supported and is pretty close to a Windows experience.
I hate Gnome with passion because it’s nothing like Windows. I tested Ubuntu 2009 and the Gnome DE is what made me not like Linux. I did not know at the time that KDE Plasma also existed
In 2009 gnome was still windows-like IMO. It’s gnome shell that flipped the script.
The wierd app drawer was still a thing and a few other things I really didn’t like. Canonical was giving away copies to try at Dreamhack Summer 2009. I remember it very well
I would suggest go with LMDE. It is based on Debian 12 with latest Cinnamon DE. It would be resemble with Windows 90% of the time.
Mint Cinnamon. I would choose Zorin Lite (XFCE) as it has nice theme already.
Linux Mint Debian Edition. Very windows-like + automatic updates = ideal for people who don’t really want to have to learn anything new (assuming your parents are like mine in that respect).
Linux mint doesnt update automatically, does it? It warns about them, but you need to press “okay”.
You can setup unattended-updates to handle most of those.
You have to enable it, but once you do it can do them automatically.
Disclaimer I am on Fedora Kinoite with soon Plasma 6 too.
Staying in an older Fedora Kinoite version will spare you from the breaking changes. Like currently 38 instead of 39. I would use ublue kinoite-main. You can disable animations, baloo etc. and have a very minimal experience.
Have a look at ElementaryOS. Easy Desktop, immutable Debian base afaik. VanillaOS also has a Debian variant.
Immutable stable Distros are really needed.
Automatic upgrades like traditional distros are not enough (they only annoy users but dont really apply them), you need really automatic ones.
Ublue has ublue-update on some editions, which is really nice. Fedora wants to implement some half baked solution I guess. If they are always at home and on power that is no problem.
I’d go with XFCE. Maybe Xubuntu?
Fedora Budgie desktop edition and keep automatic updates on
I think MATE is the best balance between lighter weight and ease of use.
As other have said, please do an SSD swap.
If it’s “unbearably slow” that is an indication of drive failure especially on old boot drives. Linux will not fix this.
After that, Cinnamon if they like windows. Gnome if they don’t or don’t care.
Pop os is a great “fire and forget” OS for normal users. I work in a computer shop and have seen tons of not-knowledgable people run it without issues.
