Hi guys.

My mom has pretty old and shitty home HP notebook and I was thinking that since she mainly uses it for browsing Facebook and watching Youtube that I would upgrade it for her to Linux instead of Win 11. The only thing is that I want some lightweight desktop like XFCE or maybe Mate and to make it as painless as possible for her I would like to install Windows 10 looking theme on that machine.

Do you guys know of any good themes that are updated at least on semi-regular?

Thanks. ;)

  • Neikon@lemmy.world
    131·
    2 days ago

    First of all, I apologize for not answering your specific question about themes but.

    To be honest, instead of struggling with themes on XFCE or MATE, you should consider that there isn’t much difference in performance right now between those and Cinnamon or KDE Plasma. Both have a workflow very similar to Windows 10 out of the box, which would make the transition much more painless for your mom.

    I highly recommend Linux Mint (Cinnamon Edition); it’s the gold standard for ‘it just works’ and feels like Windows 10 without needing extra themes. If you prefer Plasma, Kubuntu or Tuxedo OS are excellent, stable, and beginner-friendly options that run great on older hardware without being ‘bleeding edge’ or unstable.

    • thatonecoder@lemmy.ca
      5·
      1 day ago

      KDE has an insane footprint, from my testing. easily 2-4 minutes top from booting up Mint or Void Xfce, and GL getting KDE (tested using Chimera and Fedora) to fully load up in under 15 minutes. Of course, this is all live booting, but still…

    • non_burglar@lemmy.world
      3·
      1 day ago

      Cinnamon, maybe… But KDE plasma? You must be joking. How do you get KDE plasma down to 300 to 500 mb memory use?

      There’s a good reason xfce is the de of choice for low-resource systems like raspberry pi.

    • Eugenia@lemmy.mlEnglish
      31·
      1 day ago

      No KDE for new users, it’s way too convoluted and bloated ui-wise. It also uses lots of ram, more than cinnamon. XFce is indeed much lighter than either, but it doesn’t have enough desktop preference panels like Cinnamon does (e.g. printer panel).

      • ThoGot@feddit.org
        2·
        1 day ago

        Honestly I installed Kubuntu when I started trying Linux a couple of months ago and it’s the system that I stuck with and wasn’t completely confused, compared to the standard Ubuntu or Linux Mint which I tried beforehand and decided to uninstall

  • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
    4·
    1 day ago

    I second the recommendation of Linux Mint. Try a Live USB, and see if it feels fast. If it does, it is a great option.

    In terms of theme, have you considered that Linux Mint’s theme is sexy as hell? I wouldn’t install it apologetically. I think it sells itself well.

    Edit: and the practical stuff is all in the same places as on Windows, anyway. Start menu is in the lower left. Bar is along the bottom. Time and network applet are in the lower right.

    The few ways I have noticed it is different seem to be because Mint doesn’t require corporate branding and names a few things in plain language, instead of MS jargon.