this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2025
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Sorry for a noob question, but is there a recommended flavor (xfce/mate/cinnamon) for a 2010 era laptop, or is there no reason not to use cinnamon?
Cinnamon uses slightly more resources than the other two. But, it's lightweight enough I doubt you are going to have an issue, even with a computer of that era.
Thanks for the feedback! Its a surprisingly big hurdle, especially for someone indecisive that's not going to try all three.
With Rufus running on a usb stick, trying out all 3 is a 30 minute affair. Download included if your internet speed is high enough.
I never considered it before, but I see now Rufus lets you as multiple images to one stick. Thanks!
Have fun distro hopping 😄
can't you switch from xfce to cinnamon and vice versa too?
Yes, but a user would need to be experienced enough to know how to uninstall the previous desktop environment components they don't want, otherwise their application menu would have both DE's applications (2 file managers, photo viewer's, text editors, terminals, etc), which can feel a little cluttered.
Yeah, you can install both, then just pick which one you want during login.
https://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?t=214635
I’d say RAM is going to be the largest performance bottle neck for a desktop environment on an older machine. 4gb of RAM? don’t bother with cinnamon, you’ll likely have a much better experience with Mate or XFCE. 8gb is about where I’d even bother to test out cinnamon.
You should probably take a look into puppy Linux, if low specs. Otherwise anything with xfce should run better on it.
I ran Puppy off of a 4gb USB for almost 2 years when the hard drive crashed in my desktop years ago. As far as the "it just works" OS's go, it was fantastic.
Nothing is more permanent than a temporary solution that works well!
Hard to say without specs. I'd go with XFCE and then MATE right behind it. With a lower end PC, I doubt it could handle the fanciness of Cinnamon and still run software