this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2024
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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?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago

PSA no matter how light your distro, any modern app or webpage will use all that power

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

I usually go with Xfce.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 months ago (3 children)

@Crying4625 If you don't mind use Xorg, go with XFCE
I personally prefer LXQT, specially since Wayland development is already work in progress

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

Wayland development is also well under way for Xfce.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago (2 children)

+1 for Fluxbox!

It’s such an underrated WM

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

LXQt, XFCE Or a window manager, they’re all lightweight.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Technically not a DE, but I like plain openbox.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Wasn‘t there a crunchbang project putting this nicely together with debian? I remember it fondly, but that is centuries ago…

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I use IceWM on antiX. Seems to be a good mix of low resource usage and aesthetics.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (5 children)
  • 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
[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (3 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

plasma is surprisingly performant

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

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

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Try KDE Plasma, you can strip out a ton of it, for example XOrg entirely, baloo, animations, etc.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

OP asked for desktop env, and tiling window managers are... Well only window managers and not desktop environments...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I like MATE. It feels familiar. (I’m a GNOME user 😅)

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 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)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago (1 children)

KDE plasma. From my experience it uses less resources than lxqt and xfce and works out of the box while lxqt and xfce required extra work to get wifi, screen brightness controls and audio working. I can have 10+ tabs in a chromium based browser open without lag on an old laptop with 2GB ram and 1.33 - 1.83GHz 4 core intel atom from 10 years ago.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

s/chromium/Firefox/g

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

I would go mx linux fluxbox

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

LXQt, XFCE, Maté, TDE. Any of them will do. Which you choose depends on personal preference and how large an ecosystem you want—LXQt has only a few basic applications, TDE has pretty much everything that was in KDE3, the others are somewhere in between.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Xfce, LXQt or just install JWM and enjoy the 30 Mb idle RAM usage

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

You could try Niri. I have tested it with a ~10 year old notebook with a 1st gen Core i5 cpu.

But, even newest Gnome runs smooth on this machine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago

If xfce doesnt count as light I don't know what would

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Your biggest problem is going to be the 4 GB of RAM. Saving a few hundred megs on the DE will help but not much. If you run a web browser ( and I cannot imagine using a computer without one ) that RAM is going to fill up fast.

Honestly, I would use a 32 bit distro on that hardware.

Q4OS with Trinity, Antix, Adelie, and DSL are all pretty decent options.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago
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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Probably lxqt. https://lxqt-project.org/ Very lightweight yet a full-on DE (minus bells and whistles). Found on most Linux distros repositories.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I love OB with tint2 and conky , no de needed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (3 children)

If it was for me I could use something like that. But I don't think the person I'll give the pc to would be able to lol

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Moksha Desktop environment Bodhi Linux

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Or Fedora Budgie Edition

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

XFCE or LxQT but i have a preference for XFCE if it is for normal use.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

For something with that little memory, I would use a minimal window manager; you'll want every megabyte of memory if you want to have any chance at running something like a javascript-capable browser without constantly hammering swap. fvwm, cwm, jwm, and ratpoison are all small window managers I enjoy; but do your own research into what window manager is the best for you.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

I have a thumb drive with Mint Mate installed on it and it runs fine on a 4gb i5 - 3rd gen.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

honestly they are all pretty good at this point. start with the default ur distro supports. if that isn't to your taste try kde/plasma, gnome or lxde

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