That hardware is very powerful, so Linux Mint (maybe Debian Edition) will do the trick.

I understand where you’re coming from, but there are some flaws with your reasoning:

• About Kernel anti-cheats: if you wish, you can dual-boot Windows and any GNU+Linux distro, without any issues.
• The LibreOffice thing: there is OnlyOffice, and even M$ Office has Open Document format compatibility.

I think so too. I just checked his profile, and it’s riddled with overly controversial opinions, to ridiculous extents.

Not that bad - the start menu opens in about 2 seconds, but some apps can take much longer (highly depends, but up to 6-10 seconds). I can easily work with a minimal, Windows 9x layout, if that means I will get a significant performance boost.

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 do play Minecraft 1.8.9 competitively, but would using Wayland help with that?

Yeah, it does feel like Windows XP, but that’s also the beauty of it - I can customize it using the graphical editors, since the UI is not confusing, just outdated.

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.

Web browsing, writing, playing Minecraft, and maybe some more things.

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.

Is one of the requirements you’re talking about the storage usage? If so, then yeah, that is a problem for me.

Mine’s cb0XX, from 2018! Can you tell me the distro that worked best, for it?

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.

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.

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’m not even sure that we’ll ever get to that point. Plus, it’s not compatible with most hardware yet.

Nonetheless, I think that it is possible to modificate these cards, to have an upscaling chip inside it. But it would take some effort, which no company will ever do.

Ray Tracing is useless (unless it’s for animated movies or movies that use CGI), regular lighting is a lot better for performance, and it’s 80% as good as Ray Tracing, in comparison. I use a really bad laptop, yet it is possible to get 30 to 60 FPS, on decently optimized games.

Then, isn’t it best to say what you used the AI on, so that consumers can make even better choices?

The problem is that it’s being used to not optimize, when it should be to prolong the lifespan of computers, mostly older gaming rigs. If developers focused on optimizing and not on rushing things, a GTX 1080 Ti could probably handle AAA games at 1440p, high settings, at least at 60 FPS, and 140+ FPS with DLSS at quality. Keep in mind that I don’t blame most developers, but rather big corps, that do have partnerships with companies like Nvidia, that obviously want people constantly buying their GPUs.