Edit: It works! Not beautiful and shows a concerning amount of “Error” lines on startup but it will do. I got VSCodium and ESP-IDF running, at least – and CMake isn’t awfully slow despite it being a crappy 4GB RAM machine (not easily upgradeable). The first boot took a while and I haven’t rebooted since, I guess it will be below 30 seconds next time (Mint on same machine but HDD was about 1 minute).
Edit: I hope I chose the right kernel here, surprisingly not much info online on this! Also, I picked “targeted” because the 10-year-old system does not use any cutting-edge hardware and all drivers should be auto-detected, I think.
After some experience with Linux Mint, I gathered the courage to try another distro. I’d like to turn an old laptop into an IPTV receiver plus FTP/OpenVPN/HomeAssistant server with occasional desktop use. I first installed Windows 11 just in case my family needs to use it (it fucking sucks, the built-in PS/2 keyboard doesn’t work half the time but that’s an issue for later) but now I’ll be turning it into a dual-boot setup with Debian as the primary option. Please give me some encouragement, I’m really afraid of new things.
Old pic: https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/d4bf0222-4fc1-42ab-a3e9-464087dec3af.png
No, I’m absolutely not. What desktop environment should I choose? KDE Plasma is tempting - it would be nice to use it before I install it with Arch on my main system - but I don’t need the cutting edge or much personalization. I know XFCE best but GNOME is default… GNOME’s big launcher looks great for the TV but it’s also more resource-hungry and less customizable…
I guess I’ll go with the familiar Windows-style XFCE and maybe add big remote-friendly icons later when I configure an IR receiver.
KDE Plasma is very nice if you come from Windows and don’t mind an environment that’s somewhat heavy on performance - personally, I think it’s the closest, modern Windows-like experience. XFCE is very lightweight, but not very modern, as far as I remember.
Don’t forget, you can also install multiple environments and then pick one from your login screen; that way you can try them all and see what fits best
That’s the beauty … You can change any time you want (sudo tasksel) withjout losing your data. or install all of them and choose one each time you login
I have used gnome, plasma, and xfce and they are all fine. I prefer KDE personally but they’re all going to do what you need to do. It’s all down to personal aesthetic preference, and picking one won’t hinder you in any real way. KDE to me just looks super nice out of the box for my taste, and I like the customization.
Well, you can try a Live CD for first contact. Or even a virtual machine, with a complete install of the operating system and desktop environment, without touching your actual system.
I’ve been using Debian with the default GNOME on an old laptop and main desktop and have been very happy with it. Coming from Windows I love that it’s way simpler and I don’t need to set a million options.
But remember the thing with Linux is you’re not locked into anything - So try GNOME or XFCE for a few weeks, then if you still want something else install and switch over to another desktop environment. You could even install all these desktop environments during the Debian install itself and just keep switching every time you log in.