If you want to use Linux to breathe life back into an old PC, you're going to want one of the desktop environments (DEs) designed to be lean and fast. Based on my experience, this is how I'd rank each of the most popular options.
For the purposes of proper comparison, I'm excluding window managers—such as IceWM, i3, and OpenBox—and instead focusing solely on complete DEs. The terms desktop environment and window manager sometimes get used interchangeably, but they aren't the same. Window managers without complete desktop experiences have an intended audiences and use-cases that are more narrow and specialized than DEs, so I don't think it's fair to include them here.
5 MATE
If you've been in the Linux world long enough to remember GNOME 2, then you probably know aboutMATE. Its original mission was to preserve and continue developing the interface that GNOME 3 left behind, namely the GNOME Panel and its more traditional approach to desktop navigation and workflows. MATE also has its own collection of basic utilities that were forked from GNOME projects at the time, like the Caja file manager.
Having used it only through Linux Mint's MATE edition, I think it's a solid choice for a DE. I do appreciate the traditional Windows motifs it opts for.
Despite that, it maintains some GNOME elements I don't appreciate. And while this could be attributed to a number of factors, I also noticed in my testing some graphical glitches I didn't experience on other DEs in this list. So it's the one I'm least inclined to recommend.
4 LXQt
LXQt is a lightweight desktop environment that stays up-to-date in design while still offering robust configuration options. It primarily uses the Qt framework, so window construction looks more similar to that of KDE Plasma than to GNOME. Still, it maintains its own software unique from KDE's, like the PCManFM-Qt file manager and Qterminal.
Especially in its default theme on Lubuntu, LXQt feels more modern than the rest, with bright, solid colors and sensible navigation buttons. It's not dissimilar to what you'd see on the latest versions of Android. For that reason, I'd show LXQt to anyone who thinks of Linux as being behind the times design-wise. I also give points to LXQt for having a mature and diverse ecosystem of software.
For my personal computing preferences, though I have a penchant for throwback designs. I don't enjoy feeling like I'm on a mobile device when I'm working on my desktop PC or laptop, and that's also why I'm not a fan of GNOME. I'd have to do a lot of tweaking on LXQt to feel comfortable.
GNOME vs. KDE Plasma: Top Linux Desktops Compared
Which desktop environment would you pick?
3 Moksha
Moksha I almost didn't include because of my embargo on window managers. According to its own wiki, "You could say that it straddles the line between a Window Manager and a Desktop Environment." I'm including Moksha because it's used almost exclusively by a Linux distribution frequently recommended to newcomers wanting a lightweight experience: Bodhi Linux.
The Moksha environment is meant to be minimal in its resource usage (thus the eco-inspired artwork) and still highly configurable for power users. I give Moksha points for style. As a creatively-minded person, I have respect for design projects that are bold and unabashed in their presentation.
That said, the configuration of Moska I found to be difficult to navigate. I spent several minutes just figuring out how to change the display resolution. Sometimes its idiosyncrasies go a bit too far, in my opinion, like the way taskbar tooltips are dramatically animated. While it's interesting to explore, I'd have a lot to disable or learn to tolerate just to feel comfortable daily driving Moksha.
2 Xfce
Xfce might be the most ubiquitous lightweight desktop environments in the Linux world. When a Linux distribution wants to provide a lightweight but feature-complete edition, Xfce is usually the go-to.
I think of Xfce as the most utilitarian on this list. It puts (resource-friendly) function over form in almost every way. For that reason, it's one of my favorites.
Still, I feel the default configuration's function is too limited for my personal computing purposes. At least in the version of Xfce CachyOS supplies me, I had to manually enable notification logging, find a clipboard manager that met my needs, and create some of the launcher actions I'd grown accustomed to inKDE Plasma's Krunner. So while it's close, and I'd certainly recommend it to almost anyone who needs a low-power desktop, Xfce isn't number one on my list.
1 Trinity
Considering how little attention it gets, Trinity's place on this list will probably be my most controversial decision. In case you haven't heard of it,Trinity is a fork of KDE Plasma (specifically version 3.5), and its shorthand is even TDE.
From exploring on Trinity I've done (using Q4OS), I was impressed. I liked the throwback look to older versions of KDE you might recognize as appearing close to a blend of Windows XP andWindows' famed Aero theme from the era of Windows Vista and 7. It had its detractors, but I really liked those looks from Microsoft. Using Trinity felt like getting back to the basics in a way that fits my brain.
To boot, the Plasma base means I can use it without having to relearn too many habits I picked up from daily-driving Plasma for so long. While that won't fit everyone's preferences and workflows, it does mine.
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Just installed a Plasma distro on an old PC? Try this.
You might disagree, but that's how the lightweight desktop environments stack up in my mind. In fact, after spending some time with it as a virtual machine, I'm tentatively planning to install Q4OS with Trinity on my second hard drive inmy Kubuntu laptop.
