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?

  • pixxelkick@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • pH3ra@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      7 months ago

      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