I have a Lenovo IdeaPad 5 with a 10th-generation i3 and 4GB of soldered RAM, so upgrading the memory isn't possible. Windows uses nearly all the available memory as soon as I open a browser, so I'm trying to find a better Linux setup.
I've been using Linux Mint MATE, but I'm unhappy with severe screen tearing when moving windows around. Playing 4K YouTube videos in Brave also makes the entire browser lag badly, although Firefox handles it better. Disabling hardware acceleration in Brave didn't help, and Mint reports that all drivers are up to date. The laptop uses integrated graphics.
Mint idles around 1GB of RAM, and a 4K YouTube video brings usage to roughly 2.6GB, so memory usage itself doesn't seem catastrophic. Are the tearing and video problems specific to Mint, its desktop environment, or Linux configuration in general? Would switching to a distro using Wayland, such as Fedora KDE, help? I'm also open to lightweight options such as XFCE or LXQt, as long as they work well on relatively modern hardware and support Chromium-based browsers.
4 Answers
A 4K video is a demanding test, especially if the laptop display is only 1080p. The key issue is whether video decoding is happening on the integrated GPU. Check the browser's internal graphics or media diagnostics to confirm hardware decoding is active. If it isn't, changing distributions may not be enough; the browser, codecs, driver, and session type all matter.
Consider Lubuntu, MX Linux, Bodhi Linux, or another lightweight Ubuntu- or Debian-based option. Lubuntu and some other distributions also enable zram, which compresses memory and can make a low-RAM system feel less sluggish before it starts swapping to disk. Try each option from a live USB and test window movement and YouTube playback rather than judging only by idle RAM usage.
For the tearing, try a current distribution that offers Wayland by default instead of relying on the older X11 session. Fedora KDE is a reasonable option, and KDE can be made fairly light by disabling desktop effects, file indexing, unnecessary widgets, and related background services. Make sure hardware acceleration is enabled in the browser and that the appropriate graphics codecs and drivers are installed.
Is KDE generally faster than GNOME on hardware like this?
The distro itself isn't always the limiting factor. Browsers are usually the largest memory users, and no lightweight desktop can completely compensate for many tabs or inefficient video decoding. Still, a current Wayland-based distro with zram and working hardware acceleration is probably a better direction than simply switching from MATE to XFCE while keeping the same graphics stack.
Both Brave and Firefox use about 2.6GB while playing the video, so RAM usage doesn't seem to be the main problem. The tearing is still present when moving windows, which makes me suspect the display driver or X11 session.