4d ago

Which Distribution and Desktop Environment should I use?

Background: I am a lifelong Windows user who is planning to move to Linux in October, once Microsoft drops support for Windows 10. I use a particularly bad laptop (Intel Celeron N3060, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, 64 GB eMMC storage).

I do have some degree of terminal experience in Windows, but I would not count on it. If there are defaults that are sensible enough, I'd appreciate it. I can also configure through mouse-based text editors, as long as there is reliable, concise documentation on that app.

So, here's what I want in a distro and desktop environment:

Easy to install, maintain (graphical installation and, preferably, package management too + auto-updating for non-critical applications)
Lightwight and snappy (around 800 MB idle RAM usage, 10-16 GB storage usage in a base install)
Secure (using Wayland, granular GUI-based permission control)

I have narrowed down the distributions and desktop environments that seem promising, but want y'all's opinions on them.

Distributions:

Linux Mint Xfce: Easy to install, not prone to randomly break (problems: high OOTB storage usage, RAM consumption seems a little too high, kind of outdated packages, not on Wayland yet)
Fedora: Secure, the main DEs use Wayland (problems: similar to above except for the outdated packages; also hard to install and maintain, from what I have heard)
antiX Linux (problems: outdated packages, no Wayland)

Desktop Environments:

Xfce: Lightweight, fast, seems like it'd work how I want (problems: not on Wayland yet, that's it)
labwc + other Wayland stuff: Lightweight, fast, secure (problems: likely harder to install, especially since I have no Linux terminal experience, cannot configure through a GUI)

In advance, I thank you all for helping me!

I appreciate any help, especially in things like:

Neofetch screenshots, to showcase idle RAM usage on some DEs
Experiences with some distributions

66 comments

I've had Fedora updates screw up so many times and spent way too many hours fixing mutually conflicting updates that I have really come to loath the OS. I keep a Fedora server running for my customers who are Redrat enthusiasts but Ubuntu is so much better behaved.

What do you prefer? Linux allows multiple desktops to be installed. I use Mate primarily but I also have lxde installed as a backup in case something breaks.
- I prefer something that has the same functional layout as Windows, but is as lightweight and minimal as possible (a Windows XP-like Start Menu is fine, I just need something that is configurable enough and doesn't blow up my laptop).

I would recommend slackware or devuan with xfce or lxde

Just use Linux Mint, cinnamon edition, and then edit the startup app list to not load some of the stuff that take too much ram, like the reports, nvidia, etc. Also remove fwupd if you updated your laptop's firmware already via windows. I personally also stop bt (frees overall 30 mb of ram). Make sure during installation that you create a 4 GB swap partition too. At the end, I have a system that starts up at 750 MB of RAM (htop reading, 980 MB with gnome-system-monitor). As long as I use only 2-3 Chrome tabs, I'm ok to not swap. Firefox uses more ram i'm afraid, especially with youtube.
I have 4 laptops here run linux mint with 4 gb of ram. They run fine, my husband even does development in one of these.
The n3060 cpu is slow at 660 PassMark points, just enough for Mint to function. XFce is a tad faster indeed, and uses about 60 MB less RAM, however, it's missing some desktop options that I find useful (e.g. disabling tap and drag).
- Yeah this is the way. Debian stable has outdated packages, debian testing has broken packages. Ubuntu is difficult for beginners because of snap. Linux mint is the perfect just-works debian-based beginner distro. Same for DE: Gnome is hard to use, KDE is bloated and unstable, and XFCE is too minimalist/diy/quirky for beginner users (you need to add a panel applet in order for the volume keys to work? Huh??). Cinnamon is the perfect middle ground between resource usage and features.
  Make sure during installation that you create a 4 GB swap partition too
  Or at least as large as your RAM if you want to be able to hibernate.

My advice: try them all, then decide. They are all free. Most offer live systems. It will only cost you time, which will be well spent learning.
tl;dr: Break things and have fun.

Try a few live disks out. See what works best with your hardware and workflows. I like Fedora with KDE Plasma, personally. But I prefer RHEL based to Debian based stuff and I don't like the direction Ubuntu is beimg taken for monetization.

I am not sure that using Wayland is your best choice here. Based on laptop specs it is not like you are going to game on it. And for web and office tasks x11 still offers a better experience. On Wayland you would have problems with things like scaling, screen capturing etc. They are (to some extend) solvable, but are tricky to fix, especially with your lack of terminal experience.
Also I would not care that much for cutting-edge repositories. They are usually required for support of the new hardware (which of cause is not the case here).
Also, almost all modern DE are somewhat the same in terms of resource consumption. Some are a bit heavy (for example Cinnamon is heavier than xfce) but the difference if almost negligible. The majority of resources would be consumed by a browser, not DE. If you still wish to have the lightest DE possible, than you are limited to LXQT. XFCE nowadays is not as light as it used to be. You can have a very good performance with window managers like openbox and alike. For panel you can use polybar, tint or whatever. But that would require some configuration from you. Such setup is available in MX Linux. I suggest you to take a look at that distro, it is kinda good for old laptops. Of cause, standalone Wayland compositors (sway, hyprland, labwc, wayfire etc.) are very good, but they would require you to do a lot configuration work to set everything working. Even distros that ship them preinstalled (like Fedora Sway spin, for example) have somewhat broken defaults.
- Thanks for this kind answer! I might game a bit on it (I am probably going to be the last person to stop playing Minecraft 1.8.9), but I don't know how much better Wayland is. I can tinker a bit of the settings, but not too much. I also have another laptop that has half the specs (but a better CPU, for some reason) that I might use as a lab rat.
  
  The main problems with gaming on x11 are:
  Screen tearing. You can check YouTube for how it looks.
  Latency in x11 is significantly higher.
  HDR support. X11 does not support HDR. But I doubt you laptop supports it either.
  I do not believe that problems 1 and 2 affect minecraft that much. They are mostly prominent in games like first-person-shooter and alike.
  Also, note that Minecraft itself does not support wayland. This means that it would run under x11 that would run under wayland (with both x11 and Wayland problems combined).

@thatonecoder unless i missed it, it looks like no one suggested puppy linux! it's very light and some variants (bookworm pup) has wayland options (32 bit and xorg options as well) and full apt usage.

You are thinking too hard I think in the wrong direction. Use Mint unless you have a strong feeling/need for something else. In which case, use that. Choice of first distro is not really that important. Pick a popular one and if it's wrong for you, you'll figure it out.
What you haven't mentioned is any research you have done regarding hardware support/compatibility for your specific device. I searched the specs you listed and it came up with some netbooks like CB012DX. I actually have an older, shittier version of this device running a debian derivative. (Mint is also in the debian family FYI.) And I've had fun installing various linuxes on even older, shittier ~~chrome~~netbooks over the years.
Assuming yours is in this ballpark, I have one really important piece of advice for you. Before you think anymore about it, download ISOs of your top 1 or 3 distro choices, flash them to USB and attempt to boot. These super cheap devices cut corners on components. It is not unlikely that you will have some hardware that either doesn't have open source drivers, or has some sort of theoretical support that will be too esoteric for you to implement at your current skill level. It is quite common on these devices that everything works fine except networking or something like that. So you might be able to exclude some of your choices based on that. Try to find a distro that works reasonably well out of the box.
You should find the various names your device goes by
As you have probably read, booting from a flashed USB is non-destructive of you normal system (unless you choose to format your disk or something of course). Assuming you have no issues booting, try out all the hardware features you have like: trackpad (different kinds of click, drag, zoom etc), ethernet, wireless (2.4 + 5ghz network), bluetooth, speakers, headphones, external input device, external displays, fingerprint scanner, touch screen, all keys and buttons, cameras, mics, sensors, keyboard lights. Any external devices you like to use: mice, keyboards, dongles, should also be included. I suggest making a list and systematically checking each item.
You can use this amazing tool called ventoy to flash one USB boot drive to have multiple distros available. You can even keep a windows ISO on there. It will even let you reserve a portion of the disk for persistent storage. Ventoy substantially improves this whole process so you don't have to have 10 different USB disks floating around. It is well designed and straight forward to use.
So on my current netbook, I was lucky that networking has been no problem. people with a slightly different model have to use an external wifi dongle (and not all wifi dongles are compatible with linux). I have never gotten anything form the speakers, but they might have arrived broken, apparently it's pretty easy to blow out the speakers and I didn't test while ChromeOS was still installed. Using an arch-based distro, the touch screen worked but now in Debian it doesn't. I don't really care about that. I really wanted Bluetooth to work and I couldn't for the longest time til one day it just magically solved itself and I haven't reinstalled since then because I am not sure I'd be able to re-solve it.
The other piece of advice has to do with storage. Depending what software you run, it can require a bit of space. 64gb could be gone quickly. This will be somewhat controversial (for good reason) but I always end up devoting the full eMMC to the system partition and having a permanently mounted SD card for /home, user storage and maybe even some of the system temp directories. This goes against common advice because SD cards are more prone to failure. So you need to have a good backup plan or just accept the risk. But if you run out of storage space on your system drive you can get yourself into the kind of mess that requires reinstalling.
In terms of both storage and RAM/CPU use, you will want to be extremely judicious of you application use. Firefox is a beast on any operating system.If you like to have a bunch of hungry tabs going on, you can't really optimize the OS.
- Ventoy ⬆️⬆️⬆️
  
  Ventoy is just soooo fucking useful.
- I pretty much agree with all of this... I have a Mint XFCE installed on a thumb drive. (Not an installER , installED.) I can boot it on basically any computer that still supports Legacy, and I've done so on a Dell Venue Pro tablet (Atom CPU, 2Gb Ram). Had a bastard of a time getting it to boot, but it ran better than the on board Windows 8.1. This was post-Covid. Of all the systems I've run it on, one didn't have WiFi, and one had a bunch of messing around to get the audio to switch between speakers and headphones reliably. But keep in mind, this is the exact same copy of the OS, across a half dozen systems. I've also upgraded it over five years or so...
- Mine's cb0XX, from 2018! Can you tell me the distro that worked best, for it?
  
  Idk which has worked best. Currently it is running on a debian derivative called "sparky" for no particular reason. As I said, bluethooth magically started working so I'm not changing anything.
  I really strongly recommend you prioritize a popular distro as a novice user. When you have problems, it will be a lot harder to get help if you are using something obscure. People who are using more common distros won't be able to know if your problem could be due to some oddity of your distro. So they will be more reluctant to offer solutions.
  Mint is a really good first choice. And you should just try the thing I suggested about booting from USBs and seeing if networking and other basics work properly.
  Only proceed to something like sparky if nothing else works.
  The good news about having a device from 2018, is there should be no (few) surprises. Other people will have tried things already. It's a similar benefit as choosing a popular distro.

The other comments do a good job explaining why you would go with X or Y distro based on your requirements. What I want to do is give you a general recommendation/piece of advice based on a feeling I get from reading your post that, that you are not excluding the possibility of tinkering with your system at some point in the future to get it less bloated and more streamlined to your use case (please absolutely correct me if I'm wrong about my interpretation).
As such, I think if your current computer has the ability to reasonably run Mint you should go with that. The reason is that it simply works most of the time without much hassle. As someone new to Linux, that's a big part of the transition. A lot of stuff is new, so there's no need to force extra complexity on top. You have the ability to dabble in said complexity even with Mint, but its not required, and while I am dying to recommend Arch to you having read that your PC is a bit on the less powerful side (the meme is real guys), I don't think its a productive use of your time nor a healthy level of stress to deal with at this point of your "Linux progression". That's why I recommend Mint; make the transition, have the ability to slowly and eventually play with your system to an increasing degree as you get more comfortable with everything, but don't handicap yourself from the get-go. Eventually, if you do decide to go with a distro which gives you more control in exchange for higher experience/knowledge/tinkering then you should have a solid foundation of skills to build on.
tl;dr: I recommend Mint so you get used to Linux, looking up solutions online, using the tools (commands) available to you to diagnose problems you may encounter, and if you decide its good enough for your use case - stick with it. If you want more control, think of it as a learning experience which will allow you to at some point delve into the more hands-on, complex distributions.
- The Snap bloat alone is going to blow through that memory and storage real quick.

What use cases are you planning for it? I mean, antiX would totally rock on that machine. However having Wayland, being lightweight and easy to maintain is kinda tough to find. Lose Wayland part, it's antiX. Lose lightweight part, it's Pop OS, openSUSE Leap, etc. Lose easy to maintain part (for a newbie), it's Arch (mostly derivatives that come with a GUI installer).
Though if I was preparing that device for someone else, I would probably go with LMDE.
- Web browsing, writing, playing Minecraft, and maybe some more things.
  
  I see. In that case I see no reason not to use antiX. It's so lightweight it can run well on a 20 year old laptop. You don't need latest drivers to play Minecraft (you can install them if you want like on any Debian base but there is no need for that). antiX is also easy on hard drive space since it's smaller than most distros.

When in doubt: Linux Mint.
You can find something more suitable for your need later on, but this should give you a baseline experience.
I would steer clear of labwc or other minimalist WMs when you're just getting started. In fact, try nothing but the basics first.

Why do people recommend mint xfce over cinnamon? Is not the cinnamon version better for a newbie?
- I think because: 1: I have a tiny bit of technical experience, although none with a Linux system. That's enough to use something more advanced 2: Cinnamon is basically on par with KDE, in terms of performance, which is not good at all, since my laptop's specifications are particularly sub-par.
  
  If your laptop can run w10 at all, it will run mint cinnamon very well
  
  Okay, I do not have enough knowledge about the current version of XFCE. I only know that the look of XFCE was super outdated if you do not tweak it. I cannot say if it is solved or not today.

My advice is don't take any advice. Just download the ones you are most interested in and then flash and try one by one until you feel at home.

I run Fedora 41 with Budgie on a low end Chromebook (sounds the same as you, Celeron N3060, 4 GB ram). Runs fine with no issues. I don't do any power computing, but Firefox, LibreOffice, GIMP are fine. It isn't my work computer, mainly just in the living room couch computer.

You should probably go for Linux Mint. I love the Gnome Desktop environment, but you'd need to install it afterwards. Probably go for the XFCE version of Linux mint.

Fedora Kinoite.
You will basically never need the terminal.
Highly tweakable, but out of the box is very similar to windows
It's immutable (impossible to break)
App "store" makes sense and is not weird.
Extremely fast.
- "impossible to break"
  Then why have rollbacks as a feature 🤣
  
  I mean, rollbacks are quite literally a feature to prevent breaking it. That said I've never even had to roll back once.

As a complete newbie with those specs, I'd try Mint Xfce edition.

I've tried many desktop environments: Flux, Gnome, KDE, XFCE, Cinnamon, Mate, Enlightenment, OpenBox, TWM, and screens. Naturally, Gnome prevailed. I can't resist a system that allows for endless tweaking.
- I can't resist a system that allows for endless tweaking.
  So you actually chose KDE, right?

LMDE. And this is as someone who has used a ton of distro over the years and now just rolls that whenever asked. I prefer the Debian Edition; Mint feels hacky in comparison, almost like snaps and stuff have been ripped out to make the distro something it is not...

I personally recommend Mint, but ultimately others will have different opinions and you decide what you want.

I was looking for similar answers and just couldn’t figure out what really mattered. Then I used this site: Distro Chooser
It asks a lot of questions, but I think they nailed the best choice for my needs and preferences.

I would not say Fedora is hard to install and maintain. The biggest issue by far is a setup hurdle for getting "non-free packages" enabled -- Fedora (and a few other distros) is a "FOSS-only" distribution, meaning they don't include anything by default that is not "free, open-source software." That means media codecs for playing popular audio and video file formats, web browsers like Chrome (I would recommend migrating away from this platform if you're using it) and anything else that's "proprietary software."
There are ways to enable access to this software, but it requires configuring your software package repositories to point to them. It's not hard, just something to keep in mind.
Linux Mint is a great choice for newcomers to the space -- it includes access to non-free software OOTB, has sane default applications on all of its "flavors" with their separate desktop environments, provides decent utilities for configuring your system graphically without blocking you from learning how to do so by config file or terminal should you want to learn. It stays decently up-to-date with packages, you won't be on the bleeding edge but that's not a bad thing. If you aren't doing intense activities (gaming, video editing, etc) having the absolute latest packages won't really matter to you. It still gets security updates, so you're good there. It's a well documented distro with a friendly community and forum if you run into trouble with anything. All around a really solid choice, and would be my first recommendation for someone not looking to do any heavy gaming or other specialized work on their PC.
XFCE is my desktop environment of choice. Not only is it lightweight, it also comes with some of the better desktop environment defaults, in my opinion. Linux Mint will theme it nicely upon install, but it's a long-standing DE that has a huge backlog of support for customization and "beautifying" your install however you like. Lots of themes and cursor options for those who care, all without pushing your resources. It's a traditional desktop paradigm, so it won't try and force you to interact with your PC in new and unusual ways (looking at you, GNOME, you weirdo). It just... Gets out of your way and lets you use your PC the way you're used to.
Linux Mint + XFCE is my recommendation, for sure.
- Thank you for answering! I am adding Linux Mint XFCE to my list for sure, but I have a question: is it possible to add cutting edge repositories, for Mint? Also, non-libre software is not a concern; I wouldn't use any, other than drivers and blobs.
  
  Honest answer: I've never had need of cutting edge repositories in Linux Mint, so I've never looked or tried. I would doubt that adding cutting edge repositories to Mint would be a good idea for system stability -- there's a reason "bleeding edge" distributions have a reputation for being a tinkerer's playground. Look at the stability reputation of, say, ArchLinux as an example.
  I love Arch, and have used it extensively over the last decade or so, but I would not recommend it or nearly any other rolling release to a newcomer to the space; if you aren't comfortable getting your hands dirty in the terminal, it's only a matter of time before you end up with an unstable system that may or may not boot without the confidence to fix it.
  My one exception to the rule above, if you aren't afraid of configuring some repositories for non-free software: OpenSUSE Tumbleweed was a wicked stable rolling release last time I tried it due to the way the organization behind it runs it. It tends to be a little heavier than what you're asking for, but as far as graphical options for system configuration you can't really beat OpenSUSE, IMO. YaST (their system configuration platform) has a tool to configure... Well, damn near everything, honestly. Even if the UI/UX feels a bit "dated", everything you need is there.
  Depending on how mission-critical your PC setup is, I might recommend doing a little "distro-hopping." Back up your data, wipe your drive, install a distro and trial it for about a week or so. If one feels like it "fits," just stay there.

Try Fedora LXQT too, it ll default to wayland in the next fedora release (~4th april i think). Its very lightweight.
- Wayland? I will be sure to keep that one on my notes! What are the storage requirements, though? Another thing is that my laptop might be using Legacy BIOS, so systemd isn't compatible with it. If that's so, does Fedora use GRUB as a fallback? I just want to be sure that I do not mess up my laptop - it is the only one I have, and I can't afford to buy another one.
  
  Another thing is that my laptop might be using Legacy BIOS, so systemd isn't compatible with it.
  Oh sorry, then Fedora isnt a good idea. They have deprecated support for Legacy BIOS.
  Anything with LXQT 2.1 available should give the same experience however right now it seems only rolling distros ship with 2.1. Lubuntu 25.04 will ship (in ~April) with LXQT 2.1 but it wont default to wayland so you might have to do some manual config. Its also not an lts release.
  storage requirements
  shouldn't be a big problem. lxqt is super lightweight. If you go with lubuntu, I recommend turning off snap to save some space.
  Linux Mint MATE or XFCE are really good if you dont necessarily want wayland support.
  Another option is the Raspberry Pi OS. Debian based, should be very lightweight and runs wayland. I haven't personally tried it though.

I'd probably go with Mint XFCE or those listed, or you can search for distros that target older hardware. I'll get back to yo on that.
Edit: so, @thatonecoder@lemmy.ca, my main search was focusing on minimal distros for old hardware (less that 1 GiB of RAM that support x86 (i.e. 32 bit)), these may fit the bill: Tiny Core, Puppy, Porteus, Absolute, antiX, Q4OS, Slax, Sparky, MX, Bohdi, Zorin Lite, Xubuntu, Archbang, Slitaz, DSL.
From here on we're on "may need ≥ 1 GiB" territory: Lubuntu, Lite, MATE, Peppermint, LXLE, LMDE, bunsenlabs, Crunchbang++, EasyOS.
Again, my focus was on low RAM usage and preferably supporting x86. Most distros aren't Wayland-ready yet, bare that in mind.
As most said, Mint with XFCE is a good start and most distros offer a "live" version you can boot to try without installing.

Mint would probably be the safest bet. You could also take a look at Manjaro XFCE, though Manjaro is a bit more advanced than what it sounds like you're looking for. There's also Zorin OS with their "lite" version which runs a modified XFCE that would probably work for your needs.
However, if you go for Mint, I'd definitely go for XFCE. I've never used labwc myself and I'm more of a Plasma guy, but XFCE is, in my own experience, a very good DE for a low-spec system. With the increasing spread of Wayland, I wouldn't be shocked to see Wayland support on XFCE in the future. Cinnamon actually has an experimental Wayland version and it's not as resource-heavy as some might think I have a 2012 laptop running Mint Cinnamon and it runs surprisingly well on that system. Then again, if you're just going for a minimalist installation, it's not necessary.

Linux mint de
You're going to distro hop (we all do) so just start somewhere. It's debian based, so what you learn will be applicable to like 80% of the distros out there.
I like gnome. Plasma is nice too. Lately I've just been using minimal i3 window manager.
Good luck!

Fedora+Xfce is probably what you want.

Mint is often the most recommended distro, because whatever you may need to do in it, it tends to be easy-ish to figure out.
But these days I would strongly recommend in favor of some immutable distro like Bluefin/Aurora or Silverblue/kinoite. Instead of being easy to figure out how to do things on them, they make it so you won't need to, ever.
It's a complete paradigm shift and it might not be for everyone, but in the decades I've been using Linux for, I had never had such a smooth experience with any distro. Everything just works and you don't need to think about the OS anymore.
However it won't easily fit with some of the requirements you listed.
- Is one of the requirements you're talking about the storage usage? If so, then yeah, that is a problem for me.

Arch. Yes, it is a tough start, yes, you'll type stuff on the terminal, but my good god...
Their documentation is the best.
You will learn a lot.
You'll get the cool stuff before anybody else.
Your system will be as snappy as it can get.
updates? one single command is all you need.
your nerd friends will worship you, and your non-nerd friends will think you are a wizard.
Once you pass the ~~initiation~~ installation, your system can look as pretty as any other distro.

If youre new to linux, then I'd say Linux Mint is the place to start. Use it with XFCE if light weight is what you want.
Not having cutting edge packages is a red herring - you really dont want bleeding edge as thats where the errors and breakages happen. Mint is reliable and secure which is what you need when starting out. You dont want to be a beta tester. Dont confuse latest packages for most secure on linux - plenty of packages have stable older versions which get security patches.
Mint is also very popular, with a huge range of easy to find resources to help set it up the way you want it.
Wayland is also a red herring - its the future but its just not really ready yet. Yes its more secure due to how its built but the scenario you're using linux in the particular security benefits you're hearing about are not really going to impact you day to day. And the trade off is that Wayland is still buggy, with many apps still not working seamlessly. Most apps are designed for X11 and x-wayland is an imperfect bridge between the two. I'm not saying Wayland is bad - it's actually good and is the future. But you dont want to be problem solving Wayland issues as a linux newbie. Dont see Wayland as essentialnfor an good stable and secure linux install.
Personally I wouldn't recommend Fedora - it has a short update cycle and tends to favour newer bleeding edge tech and paclages. Thats not a bad thing but if what you want is a stable, reliable low footprint system and to learn the basics, in wouldn't stray into Fedora just yet. It has a 13 month cycle of complete distro upgrades and distro upgrades are the times when there are big package changes and the biggest chances of something breaking. The previous version loses support after a month so you do need to upgrade to stay secure. Most people won't have issues between upgrades but with any distro when you do a big upgrade things can easily break of you've customised things and set up things differently to the base. It can be annoying having to fix thongs and get them back how you want them, and worse can lead to reinstalls. Thats nor a uniquely Fedora problem, but the risk is higher woth faster updating and bleeding edge distros. And in fairness there are lots of fedora spins that might mitigate that - but then you risk being on more niche setups so support can be harder to find when you need it.
For comparison the latest version of Mint supported through til 2029, and major releases also get security patches and support for years even after newer versions are released. There is much less pressure to upgrade.

XFCE is probably a good, lightweight DE. Many distros will support it. I believe Linux Mint has an XFCE version by default. I'm sure they will get to Wayland eventually, but it sounds many of the features will not matter to you beyond just a working desktop.
I have never tried it myself, but maybe Debian with XFCE might be more lightweight than Mint? Probably more involved to set up, though, so I would research that a bit more before taking the advice of a rando who has never done that specific distro/DE combination.
- Lol i see these over and over and the conclusion is always the same. They really are looking for Debian but they never mention it as an option.
- I did do some research, and there is a YouTube channel called "Old PC Gunk and Stuff", that tried out a laptop (that has very similar specs to mine (same model, too), but mine has twice the storage and RAM), with multiple Linux Distros and Windows 11 LTSC.
  Apparently, Mokha (Bodhi uses it and he tested it out, altho Chromium outperforms Firefox) and IceWM (AntiX uses it, and AntiX uses Firefox and yet outperformed all other than Mokha by twice the performance).
  One downside though is that both Mokha and IceWM are X11-bases, albeit I'm not aware of how bad that is, security-wise.
  
  I've literally never heard of Bodhi Linux, but apparently it is a fork of Ubuntu LTS, which will have very outdated packages if that is a concern for you.
  AntiX is likewise a fork of Debian Stable, so I suspect it will have the same issue. It also does not use the more standard systemd init system, so finding support could be an issue.
  I don't think that it make sense to start off on such obscure distros. The advantage of a widely-used distro is that there will be forum threads and a much larger network of support to help you learn and debug issues.
  I can't really speak to the security aspects of either X11 or Wayland.

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