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?
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.
Whoa, that’s a lot of comments. Thanks for your suggestions, guys. I will think about this.
Debian still ships version 5
Debian ships 5.27.5 - it’s not just not updating often, but it’s not shipping bugfix releases (latest 5.27 version is 5.27.11!). I recommend to avoid it and maybe look at KUbuntu LTS instead
I’d go with XFCE. Maybe Xubuntu?
One word of warning about Debian, you may be already aware of this: resist the urge to add remote apt repos that replace packages that are provided by Debian (same package name).
It’s ok if the packages are named differently even if they do the same thing, as long as they don’t pretend to be the same package. One good example of this is the Docker repo, which gives their own packages different names from the Docker packages on Debian.
If the repo overwrites native packages you will eventually end up with dependency relations which cannot be solved by apt anymore (most often happens when you remove a 3rd party repo). This usually comes back to bite you after a couple of years when it’s time to upgrade to the new Debian release – and you can’t.
aptitude can sometimes figure out a way to straighten things out but it can involve uninstalling/reinstalling and then upgrading a huge amount of packages which is never fun.
Also never add repos of some newer or different Debian version, that can make that effect even worse.
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
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
If they’re used to Windows, then KDE Plasma would be the better option IMO. If you feel it’s too slow on an old laptop, then you can try Cinnamon or XFCE.
Cinnamon. Whenever I try something different I always come back. Stable, reliable, similar to Windows, but without all the unnecessary improvements.
Agreed. Putting plasma on your parents PC seems like a recipe to get calls like “I’ve moved my taskbar and I don’t know how to put it back!”
Cinnamon just gives you a simple, easy to understand Windows UX, with far less room to go wrong.
Whatever you choose, make sure you’re familiar with it since you’ll be the one that has to fix everything that’s wrong. 🙂
I suggest not giving their user sudo rights and having your own user with sudo rights for installing apps, doing upgrades and so on.
It will be very useful to have SSH installed if you need to assist them remotely.
If you want to help remotely I also recommend Tailscale, it creates a “mesh VPN” private network where your PC and their laptop can see each other over an encrypted connection that can also break out of ISP NAT (no port forwards needed). Since it’s encrypted it’s ok to use simple unencrypted VNC to view their desktop to help when needed.
I can give some pointers if you have a home server and want them to be able to use web apps on it over Tailscale. One very useful example is Syncthing, which can sync files between a folder on the laptop and your server, where you can back it up further incrementally with Borg Backup or whatever you use. You can sync their entire home directory if you want or you can just have a ~/Sync dir where they put only what they want.
Last but not least, if you can swap the HDD consider putting in a SSD instead, the difference will be night and day.
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
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.
