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

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?

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.

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.