I get the feeling that Lemmy has a relatively higher concentration of Linux users. I’m preparing to move over to Linux when I build my new computer. I already put Linux Mint Cinnamon edition on one of my old laptops and I like it quite a bit. I figure that since I’ve been wanting to switch over for years, I should just do it. The games were the thing holding me back, and Proton seems to have taken care of that(I don’t really play multiplayer games that require anticheat… I’m a singleplayer kind of girl).

For me, anyway, I want to switch because Windows has been creeping me out with its telemetry. Windows 11 looks lousy, and I’d have to jump through some hoops to get my old hardware on 11, anyway.

  • slaytswiftfan ( gaytswiftfan@beehaw.org ) 
    2·
    3 years ago

    can I kinda hijack this topic to ask a question?

    I have a laptop I bought around quarantine, it was never a great laptop to begin with but over time it’s slowed down to a point where even opening Firefox takes a very long time. It’s near unusable! (It’s not a problem with a bunch of stuff running — I have everything turned off on startup outside of essentials).

    Anyway my question — is Ubuntu more lightweight than Windows 11? I only use the laptop for internet browsing and such

    • rkw_social ( rkw_social@beehaw.org ) 
      3·
      3 years ago

      Ubuntu should be lighter than windows. You can choose a lightweight desktop (XFCE, lookup xubuntu) to make it even less resource hungry. You can always test it with a live disk.

    • ken27238 ( ken27238@beehaw.org ) English
      3·
      3 years ago

      Depends on what desktop environment you use. XFCE isn’t that good looking but it’s fast.

      Gnome other “pretty” desktop interfaces are gonna slow down an already not fast computer.

    • R5v5n1nt ( R5v5n1nt@beehaw.org ) 
      3·
      3 years ago

      Are you using a HDD? An SSD will make a world of a difference before an OS would. That being said, windows does accumulate bloatware over time. So if your storage is small and you can’t replace it, might be worth giving Linux a try

    • Pigeon ( Lowbird@beehaw.org ) 
      3·
      3 years ago

      Linux is more lightweight generally, I think. It might work well for your use case. Linux Mint seems to be the most often recommended for similaroty to windows, though I ended up disliking it personally.

      For your laptop, have you tried defragmenting the disk / running chkdsk, or clean reinstalling windows? Could be software, or could be a hard drive failing, especially if you’ve had the laptop for years.

      You can also have a look at task manager to see if anything surprising is using up an inordinate amount of CPU/memory or constantly reading/writing to your disk.

      Windows Event Viewer can show you error messages, in case there is an obvious problem to see there.

      I had a problem like this at one point and it seemed to be related to Windows Defender, particularly if Windows Defender tries to scan its own folders. If you temporarily disable Windows Defender, does anything improve?