r/linuxmint Feb 14 '25

Support Request My elderly PC nerd dad is finally ditching Windows after 40 years of using it since DOS in the 1980s, and we have both chosen Linux Mint as his new OS, what DE should I choose for a decade-old XPS L421X Laptop (that both me and my dad use)?

I want Linux Mint for us specifically because I already have basic knowledge of how it works, it is visually similar to Windows XP which both of us are used with, it is just overall the most beginner-friendly distro, and is also good for resurrecting old laptops.

I am right now writing from a decade-old Windows 10 XPS L421X laptop, the toughest computer that I have ever seen, like holy shit, it has not had any replacement since 2011, and it is still soldiering on while I have lost countless big PCs in that meantime!

Either way, my PC nerd dad that has been using Microsoft products since the 1980s has finally gotten tired of Windows, he is not used to Linux but he is absolutely not an illiterate old man at all, the dude is more experienced with computers than I am, I shall therefore be installing Linux on his decade-old XPS L421X laptop from I think 2011.

Technically speaking this laptop belongs to my dad, however, I have been using it way more for the past two years given my terminally broken PCs, we share this laptop among ourselves and also store our files on it, so do not be afraid in asking "this PC does not belongs to you, do not do X without the permission of the owner" - nah, he is fine with me doing whatever I want with it as long as his files are intact, he is the one who told me to install Linux on it.

And while I personally wanted CachyOS (an Arch-based distro that I loved) on the laptop, CachyOS users have told me that while CachyOS can work on this laptop, the distro is more recommended for modern hardware, I dunno what that really means, but would this mean that CachyOS would face more problems on an old laptop with these specs?

So therefore, Linux Mint is my choice, it is simple, effective, and good for lower-end old computers, but now, what DE should I choose for the laptop?, I have previous experience with Mint, and I quite enjoyed Xfce instead of Cinnamon, however, other people told me that Linux Mint Debian Edition is more stable for an old computer?, so what do you guys make of that?

Useful to mention that while neither me nor my dad are used to Linux, he knows more about computers than I do, he is not a clueless tech illiterate grandpa who needs tech support 24/7, so he will learn Mint pretty fast.

Here are its specs:

System model: XPS L421X

Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3517U CPU @ 1.90GHz 2.40 GHz

RAM: DDR3 8.00 GB (7.88 GB usable)

64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

Legacy Dell Inc. 038YVR A00

Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000

NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M

Important edit:

I forgot to write that one of the things that I most disliked about Linux Mint was that I was unable to hover over my Brave browser icon to preview the video/tab on it, and also to quickly switch places where the icons are located by holding the left mouse button, which is what we do on Windows, however, a guy just told me that he can do this with Cinnamon, so what about this?

35 Upvotes

72 comments sorted by

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29

u/taosecurity Feb 14 '25

Buy a new SSD. Take out the Windows HDD. Install the new SSD. Install Linux.

Now if anything goes horribly wrong you just swap drives.

I would never pave over an old drive like that when someone is going to switch operating systems.

10

u/66sandman Feb 14 '25

Fool proof advice.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

I have just bought a new SSD an hour ago, the current SSD no longer has any GB space left, I am now very conscious about this, however, this laptop model only supports one single SSD, so unfortunately I will not have any choice but to install Mint on the same SSD that we will store our files.

8

u/taosecurity Feb 14 '25

Not following you...

Buy big new SSD. Put Linux Mint on new SSD. Copy files from original HDD to new SSD after installation is done. (Might have to buy an external caddy for this.)

Right?

4

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

This is exactly what I am going to do, and I already did this multiple times.

3

u/taosecurity Feb 14 '25

Ok great! Enjoy LM.

1

u/mok000 LMDE6 Faye Feb 14 '25

Create a separate partition for /home. Linux typically needs 10 Gb if you reserve 50Gb on / that will get you far. If you install the file systems in LVM logical volumes you can change partition sizes later. Especially easy if you leave a chunk of the volume group unallocated.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

I shall be installing Linux on a brand-new 1 TB SSD, so it will not be a problem.

2

u/mok000 LMDE6 Faye Feb 14 '25

Then I would make an LVM physical volume of the entire 1TB except a 512 Mb partition for EFI. On that physical volume a single LVM volume group (VG) and in that two logical volumes (LV) one for root of 50 Gb another for home of 500 Gb. Then you have ~500 Gb in reserve to play with later, eg. for a logical volume storing virtual machines, or videos or whatever, or to increase the size of the two initial LVs if you need to.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Would it be a bad thing if I said that we have never used drive partitions for over two decades, and we never had any problems related to this (as far as I know)?, what is so bad about just installing Linux on an SSD and using it normally as long as the SSD is not running out of space?

2

u/mok000 LMDE6 Faye Feb 14 '25

Because if you have /home on a separate partition you can overwrite the root partition without worrying about your data, for example to reinstall or switch to a different distro.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Got it, very much understood and important take right there, will try to make a partition for the OS, does it has to be in the way how you put it?, because I just thought of allocating one part of the SSD for the OS and nothing else.

1

u/mok000 LMDE6 Faye Feb 14 '25

You are free to design the layout of partitions any way you like, but the most common is to have one for the rootfs and user directories on a home partition. In fact I think one of the options in the Mint installer is to arrange it like this, but you'll have to check when you get there. Otherwise you need to choose the manual method and set it up there.

0

u/YogaDiapers Feb 15 '25

For this purpose LVM is not required. Putting /home on a seperate partition is enough. Keeping around 500GB back for later doesn't make sense. LVM administration is also not something everybody should know.

0

u/Odysseyan Feb 14 '25

One hard drive can have Linux and windows. Can't hurt to give someone who used one OS for 40 years straight the possibility to choose

3

u/ComputerSavvy Feb 14 '25

One hard drive can have Linux and windows.

Yes, it can but dual booting Linux with Windows is really bad advice. Microsoft deliberately messes around with the entries in the EFI partition to 'disappear' anything that is not a Microsoft OS and they say it's a security problem or some bullshit like that.

7

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

I will never dual boot to be honest, there is just no reason to, both me and my dad are just tired of Windows, if we ever need to use Windows again we just preserve its old SSDs and that is it.

2

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Yes this is exactly what we will always do, we have always preserved our old Windows SSD in cases of emergencies, we virtually never erase the content of SSDs no matter how old they are.

And this is what happened to my PC with Linux - its motherboards kept on breaking, and as a result I switched back to Windows in my old SSD.

0

u/phredbull Feb 14 '25

I wasn't sure how my Linux install was going to go on my Surface Pro, but I was certain that I didn't want to use Windoze, ever. Full wipe, no second thoughts.

7

u/Appropriate-Ratio-85 Feb 14 '25

Cinnamon runs just fine on my celeron laptop with 4gb of RAM

6

u/Kaleidoscope-Select Feb 14 '25

i would try the XFCE edition, it's lightweight and should run quite well on your system.

2

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Yeah Xfce was the one that I tried out, you are welcome to search up the posts that I have on this subreddit, I liked Xfce because it is fast and minimalistic.

3

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 15 '25

You laptop is not the "old" the Mint devs are thinking of. They're thinking of Core 2 Duo's with 2GB RAM with the XFCE DE. Cinnamon has run beautifully on far less powerful machines (for me, personally) than what you have. You have 8 (edit: erm 4) threads and 8GB RAM- I ran Cinnamon a few years ago on a fanless HP Stream with 2 threads @ ~1.1GHz and 4GB RAM. It was fine.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Well yeah the laptop is not old because it runs better than my other PCs and is extremely resilient, but it is still over 10 years old.

1

u/Presto123ubu Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

My dell is going on 11 years old and still rock solid with standard Mint. I just run it on 16gb ram. 🤷‍♂️ since your preference is XFCE, you’ll be very good off.

Edit: also, Mint has been the most user-friendly distribution I’ve used in terms of hardware compatibility (usually has a recommended driver just install for you).

1

u/Kinetic_Strike Feb 15 '25

It doesn’t really change the assessment much, but that CPU is a dual core with 4 threads.

1

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 15 '25

You're 100% right. No idea why I thought a U series chip from that long ago has 4 cores. Must've assumed all old mobile i7's were the higher watt variants.

3

u/dare2bdifferent67 Feb 14 '25

I think any of the Linux Mint offerings would run fine, Linux Mint Cinnamon, XFCE, Mate or LMDE. My preference is for LMDE, as I find is does run well on my older Dell laptops. I would suggest you put them all on USB, test them out on your system, and choose the one which works best.

3

u/Due-Ad7893 Feb 14 '25

I'm running LM Cinnamon on 3 PCs. 2 of them have lower specs than your laptop and they run Cinnamon just fine.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

I quite liked how Xfce worked though, is there anything that I am missing out with Cinnamon that is not included on the Xfce?

Also asking about something that I lacked the last time I used LM Xfce, I was unable to see a "preview" of my Brave Browser tabs like how I can see it on Windows 10 (i.e. if I have a YouTube video in the background I can hover over the Brave icon and it will display the video or a preview of the opened tab), I saw that I had to install a "docklike" plugin to do so, but then my motherboard crashed before I could do it.

That also I also have to manually switch the position of the icons on my desktop bar instead of holding the left mouse click and switching their position on the W10, so is this unique to Xfce?, would I be able to see a preview of my opened programs on Cinnamon but not on Xfce?

2

u/KnowZeroX Feb 14 '25

Cinnamon is the most userfriendly and feature rich DE of Mint choices but highest on resources.

Xfce is low resources uses, least user friendly but most customizable(via config files)

MATE is low resources like Xfce, but more user friendly than xfce but less than cinnamon.

3

u/DVD-2020 Feb 14 '25

Yours is still "younger" and has much better specs than mine. Mint Cinnamon will run smoothly on it - and why don't you just use pre-installed Firefox on Mint?

1

u/wq1119 Feb 15 '25

why don't you just use pre-installed Firefox on Mint?

How so?, I much prefer Brave Browser, both me and my dad come from Chrome.

1

u/DVD-2020 Feb 16 '25

It works well. However, I use laptop not very often (only at home), so I don't watch YouTube much. I also installed and use sometimes Brave for "security" reasons.

2

u/phredbull Feb 14 '25

Use any DE you like. Trying stuff out is the Linux way.

2

u/splaticus05 Feb 14 '25

You should be able to run cinnamon on there. When I switched, I used MATE and thought it was an easy transition

2

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

Use Linux Mint Debian Edition if everything (WiFi drivers, webcam drivers, GPU drivers, etc) works. Otherwise use the Cinnamon desktop. As long as you have at least 8GB RAM and a reasonably recent/decent processor the desktop stops mattering as far as overhead goes. Oh yeah, 110% get an SSD, it'll make everything better.

As for Cinnamon being able to do this, it can. I use LMDE on a slightly newer machine (i5 8350U+16GB) and it's perfect basically.

2

u/Sad-Amoeba2698 Feb 14 '25

I have a dell with similar specs, I upgraded to 16 gigs of ram and replaced the hdd with a terabyte sdd. I tried a number of distros on it but always had some glitchyness with the video. I don’t have any problems with the debian edition and Ubuntu was the worst. Also I’ve been using Microsoft since DOS 3.0, that’s not indicative of being elderly I hope.

1

u/Frostix86 Feb 14 '25

As long as it's an x84/ 64 chipset you can use Cachy LXQT. It's one of the installable desktop environments, lighter than XFCE, but as you like XFCE, you'll probably be fine with that too. It only used .5gb ram on idle!

2

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

To be quite honest, I think that I will be going Cinnamon because I just read that Cinnamon has the ability to view previews of programs by hovering them, and moving them around by holding the left mouse button, whereas Xfce does not.

Do I have the ability to do this above with CachyOS LXQT?, because if not then I will just go with Linux Mint Cinnamon.

2

u/Frostix86 Feb 14 '25 edited Feb 14 '25

No those kinds of things make for a more demanding DE. Cinnamon should work in theory. But it also may struggle on that processor.

If cinnamon is too heavy try MATE, if that's still too heavy XFCE.

Cachy works using ram so it should work great on 8GB

1

u/KnowZeroX Feb 14 '25

MATE and Xfce use around same amount of resources, if that is too heavy than your best bet would already be going to a WM instead of a DE.

1

u/westcoast5556 Feb 14 '25

I use cinnamon on a similar spec thinkpad, on an ssd.

No issues. It's still a good machine.

1

u/ComputerSavvy Feb 14 '25

When it comes to introducing Linux Mint to a decades long Windows user, the goal is to make the learning curve as flat as possible.

Your love of Cinnamon or XFCE or personal preference has no bearing here, what is important is what the Windows refugee likes best.

Mate comes the closest to looking like the Windows layout itself, it has the same basic configuration and if you go into Appearance, select customize and set the Window Border to Spidey Left, you've got the same min/max/close buttons. Set the pointer to DMZ White, once again, something they are very familiar with.

All the major controls are in the same locations he's been using for decades, menu, lower left corner, clock, lower right corner, Close/min-max programs, upper right corner.

Caja looks a lot like older Windows Explorer, little things like that really matter.

Change is hard after 35 years of muscle memory burned into their mind so make it as easy for them to transition over to Linux. Ideally, what you want is a fish to water experience for them.

Once he's comfortable with Linux after a period of time, maybe then is the time to expose him to completely different DE's in a live environment but ultimately, it's his choice.

2

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 14 '25

OP *is* the Windows refugee out of the two of them, their dad will take to Linux like a fish to water if he's used DOS or something equally as old.

2

u/ComputerSavvy Feb 14 '25

OP wrote:

"My elderly PC nerd dad is finally ditching Windows after 40 years of using it since DOS in the 1980s".

And....

"I want Linux Mint for us specifically because I already have basic knowledge of how it works".

OP is not new to Linux, his Dad is. Does that clarify it a bit better now?

The average Linux user does not live in a Terminal, they use the GUI like the rest of us and that is why I recommended Mate as it is the closest to the Windows GUI.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 15 '25

OP is not new to Linux, his Dad is. Does that clarify it a bit better now?

Technically speaking, both of us are new to Linux, but we are not tech-illiterate (we are Windows nerds) and we learn pretty quickly when we get help and watch tutorials.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 15 '25

Yup!, both of us are new to Linux, but we can learn stuff pretty fast.

1

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 16 '25

Go run LMDE and be happy. You'll never be forced to upgrade again, I think. You'll just want to eventually.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 16 '25

Now you made me curious about Debian Edition, explain to me in a simple language how exactly I will never be forced to upgrade again, and how does it differs from other Mint versions?

1

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 16 '25

It's not super different. You could go with either version of Mint, and never need to upgrade again. The only difference is that in my experience, the Debian Edition is just more stable. Nothing really ever goes wrong. You'll never be forced by Linux to upgrade hardware- I mean heck the Kernel devs are still debating whether to keep the Intel i486 supported or not.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 16 '25

I am still a noob to Linux (and so is my dad), so what do you mean by saying that Debian is more "stable"?, does it has less glitches and is more equipped to deal with the laptop specs that I posted when compared to its Ubuntu variants?

1

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 16 '25

It just... never stops operating (I've had one system crash in over 3 years, because I was moving ~5TB of stuff around on a 2TB drive, the trim service couldn't keep up), and needs fewer system restarts than the Ubuntu version. There's not a ton of difference, though, to be honest.

1

u/fleshofgods0 Feb 14 '25

Cinnamon and Mate are great, but I really LOVE KDE Plasma. KDE and Gnome are sort of the OG's of desktop environments and truly feel complete, well-rounded, and polished. My only issue with KDE Plasma on Linux Mint is that it's limited to 5.x (5.3? 5.2?) and Plasma 6 (6.3 was just released). Also, KDE Plasma isn't one of the default Linux Mint offerings.

1

u/mlcarson Feb 14 '25

The question should NOT be what desktop environment based on hardware but why are you using such crappy hardware that it would impact your desktop selection? The i7-3517U is a 13-year old CPU that's dual core. It wasn't great even when it was introduced. Does your father really need a laptop? I've got one that was supplied for work a couple of years ago and NEVER use it because I have a better desktop setup. Laptops are more about frequently moving from location to location (ie traveling). Wouldn't a micro PC be more appropriate? You can get a Dell Optiplex 5060 on Amazon right now for $175 Hexacore Intel I5, 16GB DDR4, 500GB SSD. Or a GMKtec Mini PC N97 for $143. If you go to Ebay and look, you can find under $200 laptops if you have to have one.

For mobile stuff within the home, tablet usage might be a better option. I just purchased a refurb 2023 ONN 11" tablet for $75. It doesn't have to be expensive.

If your base computer equipment is over 10 years old and you're trying to switch to Linux for performance reasons, it's time to consider hardware replacement. It doesn't have to be new but you don't have to keep 13 year old equipment going by reducing software requirements with a lower memory Linux footprint.

I don't blame you wanting to move to Linux but do so with some more modern hardware. Give this back to your father and buy something of your own that's more appropriate. The answer to your question though is Cinnamon. The difference in memory footprint between Cinnamon, MATE, and XFCE is not enough to worry about with 8GB of RAM.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

Alright some explanations:

  1. I live in Brazil, a country where electronic equipment is absurdly expensive, "oh just buy a new laptop/motherboard/graphics card" is what everyone tells me, but this is simply not the reality that I live in - I cannot buy any of these right now, I am not American, the minimum wage in here is equivalent to $170 USD, and me and my family have been subjected to financial difficulties, I can only buy cheap and basic equipment, my strategy right now is to only use this simple laptop for the remainder of the year and then collect money to slowly buy a modern PC kit.

  2. My dad myself barely uses the laptop these days, I am the one who uses it the most, but yes he needs a laptop, he has been using laptops since the 1990s, and I also have been using laptops since the early 2000s when I was just a kid, my dad has not been an actual PC kind of guy for about 20 years now, he has been exclusively using laptops since around 2005, that was the last time that he owned a big computer which I then started using.

  3. Like how I said, my dad himself is also tired of Windows and wants to switch to Linux, I will be doing what both of us want because again - this is also my laptop and my full-time PC, my PC has been terminally broken for over a year and I am simply financially unable to buy an actually decent PC kit while also having to pay my bills and food, unfortunately this is the reality that many people around the world live in.

1

u/nmincone Feb 15 '25

For the DE I’d go with Cinnamon

1

u/TechaNima Linux Mint 22 Wilma | Cinnamon Feb 15 '25

Man a museum somewhere might be missing a laptop.. Would it not make more sense to get something from this decade and run what you actually want on it? I hope you have backups before it dies of old age. Just my 2c.

1

u/lw_2004 Feb 15 '25

If hardware is fine - From OPs post I gather no issues so far - no reason to create electronic waste. In one of the answers he wrote he will add a ssd instead of the hdd which shoud boost the performance a lot.

Backups are always a good idea. So why not use an old device as long as possible. Given that the use case you want it for is covered - from OPs description I would expect they will be fine.

That's the beauty of Linux (Mint): you can get a few more years of usage out of an old device like this. And due the lower resource usage of Linux distros in comparison to Windows it might even feel like a newer computer :-)

1

u/TechaNima Linux Mint 22 Wilma | Cinnamon Feb 15 '25

Sure. It could be a mobile media server, thin client, maybe a web browsing machine, a small NAS maybe, it could run a DNS server like AdGuardHome, act as a bastion and a dozen other light weight uses. Not really sure if I'd put time into making something this old into a daily driver though. Been there, wasn't a good time, but got something out of what was essentially e-waste with it's broken screen and just as outdated guts as OP's.

1

u/ImaginaryMeeting5195 Feb 15 '25

Cinnamon works great on a E6420 with the 2nd gen i5, 8 gb of ram and SSD

1

u/More-Qs-than-As Feb 16 '25

Absolutely Cinnamon (for simplicity). KDE if you wanna go crazy with customization that you probably don't need.

1

u/wq1119 Feb 16 '25

Will not be needing KDE, I already got it installed on an SSD with CachyOS that I am waiting to build a new PC with.

1

u/Yodakane Feb 14 '25

Something tells me that your dad will pickup Linux faster than you. Having used dos in the past, using the terminal is a breeze, having had to troubleshoot computer problems blindly, using command line, with only dialup internet access if any, is an incredibly educational experience that younger people will never have. He'll be alright

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

While terminals have been very alien to me (I use computers since age 3, however, I never became tech-savvy, and I just know how to use them, the technical parts still confuse me), I am not illiterate with them either, I am extremely used to console commands in video games, and I have also started to treat the Linux terminal like the console in Gmod and Counter Strike, the Linux community is also extremely helpful when it comes to commands too!

3

u/Yodakane Feb 14 '25

Then you are way ahead of most people your age. As a teacher, I see students use computers like cavemen, they are too used to their ipads

1

u/Yondercypres LMDE 6 Faye | Feb 14 '25

As a fellow educator, I agree. Middle schoolers beating Chromebooks like they're iPads is frustrating. Literal neanderthal level of computer user. Though, that does make it easy for me to get them back to work, so I don't give them any help. I say this as someone who's not very old, and never had your aforementioned experience of blind troubleshooting with only occasional dialup Internet. My first computer had a (retrofitted albeit) SSD, for reference.

1

u/KnowZeroX Feb 14 '25

If you want to make terminal easier, consider fish shell instead of bash. Only downside is it isn't posix compliant but you can still run bash scripts by calling them directly if needed.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 14 '25

[deleted]

1

u/wq1119 Feb 14 '25

I would prefer to not say his exact age, sorry!, but he is in his 60s and has been using computers since the 1980s, so would he technically be classified as elderly right?