adarza

i think gnome, suitably configured, is a great choice for a basic pc or chromebook|box alternative. simple windows, fewer options to get lost in or to screw up, big fat launcher buttons for the one or very few things that’ll ever get run. throw in atomic updates and flatpak only applications, and it’s near perfect for these users.

and if you have a potato pc, read s-l-o-w-e-r

i still make a swap partition (inside the encrypted volume group). if it’s used, great–if not, no big deal, as ssd should keep some empty bits anyway.

i'm not even recommending 8gb laptops to most users anymore.. especially not ones with soldered ram that are stuck with only that.

it won't. ubuntu's announcement pertains to the extra demands of gnome, their flagship release, and it's default configuration. mint doesn't ship a gnome spin, and cinnamon, mate and xfce are lighter-weight.. and mint is not dependent upon snaps, nor is it even configured oob with snap support enabled.

latest Gnome desktop, modern web browsers, and typical multitasking workflows

so use a lighter-weight de (xfce, lxqt, budgie), and don’t go crazy with brower tabs or open applications, and you’ll be ok.. like you’re probably already doing now if you’ve got a ‘marginal’ pc.

my first install of debian was before it had names. my most recent was last tuesday. i've strayed for short stints, but debian is where it's at. i do have a couple 'others' but they are special setups for specific things. if you like the deb-based system but want to get away from canonical, trixie is ready to rescue you.

cachy is the current ‘flavour of the day’, apparently.