I would try and avoid GNOME and KDE desktop environments. Also would recommend avoiding Zorrin. It was one of the first distros I used and it wasn’t very stable and software compatibility was rubbish.
Mint is really good out of box, and if Cinnamon is too heavy they have an iso that ships with xfce which is a lot lighter (and uglier imo)
WM means Window Manager, it mostly just manages window positions, tiling, decoration, and other Window related things. WMs usually need more configuration than DEs (Desktop Environments), some don't have default panels, widgets, etc. So you have to configure those yourself.
That allows them to be more customizable and lighter, but makes them a little harder to configure.
I agree 110% with everyone that is mentioning your DE is going to be an important choice. I run Tumbleweed, and moved from KDE (which I love for its customization and effects) to Enlightment, and I've seen the load (measure of how busy my system is) go from an average of 8 or 9, down to 2 or 3. Any distribution can be configured to be using minimal resources if you spend the time, if you want minimal out of the box, there are many that have that option too, but your DE is going to affect your performance a lot more than any minimally setup OS. That being said, Chrome and having lots of tabs open is going to kill your memory usage...
Oracle is this priest who will try to convert you to christianity when you are in a hospital on your deathbed.
Oracle has been part of the Linux community for 25 years. Our goal has remained the same over all those years: help make Linux the best server operating system for everyone, freely available to all, with high-quality, low-cost support provided to those who need it.
Fuck you
We want to emphasize to Linux developers, Linux customers, and Linux distributors that Oracle is committed to Linux freedom. Oracle makes the following promise: as long as Oracle distributes Linux, Oracle will make the binaries and source code for that distribution publicly and freely available. Furthermore, Oracle welcomes downstream distributions of every kind, community and commercial. We are happy to work with distributors to ease that process, work together on the content of Oracle Linux, and ensure Oracle software products are certified on your distribution.
Oracle is one of the biggest personal data broker out there. Fuck you
By the way, if you are a Linux developer who disagrees with IBM’s actions and you believe in Linux freedom the way we do, we are hiring.
The russian army is hiring too.
Finally, to IBM, here’s a big idea for you. You say that you don’t want to pay all those RHEL developers? Here’s how you can save money: just pull from us. Become a downstream distributor of Oracle Linux. We will happily take on the burden.
Devour each others please. Thank you and fuck you.
edit: to whomever is interested in privacy, the downvote is from a troll, mass downvoter called @DarkThoughts. The link is good and the source as well.
For a desktop environment, I suggest xfce or lxde. They're very lightweight. As for the distro, all the ones you mentioned are Ubuntu-based. Even though there are some lightweight Ubuntu-based distros, like Zorin and Bodhi, you can do better. I'd suggest going for something lighter, such as the Arch-based EndeavourOS (xcfe is the default DE so it's very well-supported).
Now, if you want something even more lightweight that's still Debian-based like Ubuntu, Mint et al., take a look at BunsenLabs Linux. It's blazing fast, extremely light and very user-friendly. It doesn't use a traditional desktop environment. Instead, it uses the Openbox window manager, which requires much less resources - especially RAM, which seems like it'll be the bottleneck on your laptop.
I'd probably drop openSUSE Tumbleweed with LXQt on it. But that's my preference for low-spec machines. There's any number of distros with "lightweight" GUI's that you can use. XFCE/MATE/LXQt probably being the ones that will give you the least headaches.
Linux can definitely make that thing fly, although the biggest limitation will be RAM - not from the desktop environment you choose, but from the web, depending on how many and what kinds of websites you rely on (for example I regularly use 20-30GB of my 64 through figma, pitch, Google docs, notion, ClickUp, and sites I develop that tend to be video and image heavy). Were I you, I would prioritize the 8Gb ram upgrade.
Aside from that, which distro you choose won’t make a huge difference. Some claim desktop environments like gnome and kde plasma are too heavy (I assume they mean in graphics processing and ram usage) and will insist on something like xfce or sway. Those are invariably very fiddly to set up, so if you’re a beginner, I would recommend sticking with gnome or kde despite. These will be the default on the distros you mentioned. Mint MATE edition would be your best bet for a classic desktop environment that might tick the “lighter” check mark if you really must.
I’d go with a “light” DE for now, or a WM if possible (although it’s very different from windows). Your laptop isn’t bad - it’s actually better than mine (i3 with no discrete gpu), but i added 8gb ram (now it’s 12gb total) and it was a game-changer.
Imo, Mint or Debian is okay if you don’t want to stray far from Windows but your choice of DE is pretty limited with a small amount of ram. Maybe use xfce?
Also check out antix, puppy linux, or lubuntu. Those might be better choices while you haven’t upgraded your memory. Idk much about dual boot since I use Linux alone on my laptop or vm on my desktop.
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