Which DE for my parent's laptop (old Lenovo IdeaPad)? Wayland or X11?

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?

Drinvictus,

I’d go with XFCE. Maybe Xubuntu?

Kualk, (edited )

Gnome is simple. Gnome is native for GTK apps, which are majority. You can turn on classic taskbar, turn off virtual spaces, add minimize button and it is now a classic user experience.

I don’t understand this obsession with Wayland vs X11.

On Arch I choose Gnome and the underlying technology is picked for me based on hardware of the machine.

I recall having X11, because I had nVidia card. I bought AMD video card and it started to run Wayland without any effort on my side. It was a while ago.

Arch would require you to make more decisions, which may lead you into the woods. Use Manjaro, which made Arch tech decisions for you like choice of network management stack.

I tried Manjaro last week on laptop. It has a polished user experience. Pick to use non-free drivers. Use Libre Office instead of free office. Install Firefox and chromium. Done.

Gnome just added full search and it is included in Arch and shall be in Manjaro in less than 2 weeks.

The advantage with rolling release for your parents is that you will never run install again. You will never need to upgrade version of Debian or Ubuntu. Just update OS every time you visit them, no more frequent than once every few months, not less than twice a year.

Manjaro has polished software installation experience at graphical user interface level.

Communist,
@Communist@lemmy.ml avatar

Manjaro is amongst the worst distros for advanced users, giving it to beginners is a complete mistake, they shipped an update that uninstalled the DE

Aradia, (edited )
@Aradia@lemmy.ml avatar

If I’m not wrong, Fedora as stable release too will ship Plasma 6 in next month, they’re doing tests now.

Para_lyzed,

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.

Aradia,
@Aradia@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah, I heard Debian users says they will need to wait a full year, and it’s obvious I put 5 instead of a 6, was a typo… But thanks to let me know that Plasma 5 was released 10 years ago.

56_,
@56_@lemmy.ml avatar

I chose KDE for my parent, because I know it well (I might have gone with cinnamon otherwise). It has paid off - every time they call me with a problem, I can immediately direct them to the solution without having to look anything up. Had to switch back to X11 though, because zoom was somewhat unreliable on wayland.

acockworkorange,

Why don’t you let them choose?

dev_ashish,

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.

lemmyvore,

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.

taladar,

Also never add repos of some newer or different Debian version, that can make that effect even worse.

Zamundaaa,

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

lemmyvore,

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.

Pantherina,

I suggest not giving their user sudo rights and having your own user with sudo rights for installing apps, doing upgrades and so on.

Yes but upgrades should be automatic and not require any privilege escalation. There is nothing privileged about keeping your system up to date. Same for flatpaks.

With a –user repo (in the flathub install command) you can let them install and uninstall their apps without any privileges, only to their user. Otherwise with a system repo they need to be in the flatpak group.

It will be very useful to have SSH installed if you need to assist them remotely.

That didnt age well ;D

and yes complex stuff like Tailscale is needed as the only good VNC apps for Wayland dont have builtin servers for connecting without an IP (like RealVNC, TeamViewer or RustDesk have).

Using NoIP could be an easy solution too though.

Syncthing has versioning, I wouldnt even put servers in the game. Just backup their home to one of your machines (if that is okay for them).

coolmojo,

Replace the HDD with SSD. It will run faster. You can configure any DE to look similar to windows, maybe Gnome to the lesser extend. One think to keep in mind when choosing the distro, you have to support it. Good luck.

just_another_person,

This. It will perform better than when it was new. Pop in some extra RAM while you’re at it as it’s probably dirt cheap.

As far as DE, Gnome and Cinnamon are closest to Windows IMO. Nothing wrong with KDE, but it’s not as simplified.

Para_lyzed,

GNOME is basically nothing like Windows, in fact KDE Plasma is much closer. Cinnamon isn’t in OP’s list of DEs, though it should be available as a pre-installed option for Debian based on what I see in their live ISO list. At that point, it would probably be better to go with Linux Mint though, given the target user. I assume OP would have their reasons for choosing Debian over Mint if they wanted to use Cinnamon, though.

imecth,

Gnome's ui is a couple of extensions away from being windows-like. You don't need to subscribe to the full gnome experience™ to use gnome.

clmbmb,

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.

VVolf,

Cinnamon. Whenever I try something different I always come back. Stable, reliable, similar to Windows, but without all the unnecessary improvements.

TheGrandNagus, (edited )

Agreed. Putting plasma on your parents PC seems like a recipe to get calls like “I’ve accidentally removed my taskbar and I don’t know how to put it back!”

A system with a billion customisation options and the ability to really mess up your UX in just a couple of clicks is a blessing for power users and a curse for 70 year old Keith whose last PC was a Vista-era Compaq.

Cinnamon gives you a simple, easy to understand Windows UX, with far less room to go wrong.

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