I'm currently using an Acer Aspire 4741Z from 2010, which works fine with LXQt and XFCE, but I really dislike these options and find them a bit slow. The laptop has 6GB of RAM and a 500.1GB HDD with a Pentium P6000 processor. My main requirements are that the system should boot up quickly and open applications fast. The only application I use is a browser along with WhatsApp Web. I need a distro that supports either .rpm or .deb packages because I have a wired printer that doesn't have native Linux drivers. I'm currently on Debian using LXQt and KDE, but I find KDE too heavy for my taste. Any suggestions?
4 Answers
You might want to check out Omarchy or Bunsenlabs as lightweight alternatives. Both could work well for your setup!
Have you considered trying out TTY for your hardware? It could be a good way to meet your needs. Best of luck finding the perfect desktop environment!
Your CPU is on the slower side, but 6GB of RAM should be enough for basic tasks like browsing. Consider if you use swap; configuring `zram` might speed things up. If you're not fond of XFCE, try to optimize KDE by turning off animations and compositor effects. For distros, MX Linux or AntiX could be great choices since they're both lightweight and Debian-based!
I'll give MX Linux a shot, thanks for the tip!
Have you thought about using a Window Manager instead of a full Desktop Environment? antiX comes with several WMs and it’s Debian-based. Also, if boot times are a major concern, consider upgrading to an SSD, it can make a huge difference!
Thanks! I appreciate the suggestion!