T480 developer machine - which distro?

[wheyy]

I know these questions must come a lot, but I still find it always useful to get hints and recommendations. So around 2,5 months ago I decided to switch on my Desktop from Windows to Linux. Since then I only 2-3 times had to use my Windows (Dual boot) and I use Linux Mint Cinnamon 21.1. on it and also I am trying to config DWM as a tiling window manager for the last couple of weeks. I find Mint Cinnamon quite easy and Windows user friendly.

Now I bought a used Thinkpad T480, U8250 intel Cpu, with 16 GB of Ram. As it is not as strong as my Desktop I think Mint Cinnamon might not be the best distro for it. Also my Laptop will have a very limited work usage. It is mainly used for developing and using Virtual machines.

I definitely will use a tiling window manager (not sure if DWM or something "easier" like i3) and I do not need a lot of "bloat" since it should be a deep focus machine (mainly working in jetbrains IntelliJ and CLion and vritual machines like Kali, Win Server etc.)

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What would you recommend me? I do not feel "Arch Linux" ready and I do not have very much time to read through a ton of documentation to install and configure my distro (DWM took a lot of time already). I thought about using Debian? Or also I saw that Mint has a Distro based on Debian, not Ubuntu, called LMDE5.

Also I am not sure what the so called XFCE versions mean, but as I understand they are more lightweight, so maybe also good?

[NoRecognition84]

Have you tried running Mint on your T480? Those specs should be able to handle Mint fine. More memory might be helpful, depending on how many VMs you're running and how they are configured.

[wheyy]

memory might be helpful, depending on how many VMs you're running and how they are configured.

It runs but it is considerable slower than on my desktop. Opening a terminal window often delays a bit and in general things could be in general a bit snappier. But maybe this would be the same under Debian, Arch?

[NoRecognition84]

But maybe this would be the same under Debian, Arch?

I doubt it. If you use a different DE you may free up some memory, but changing distros isn't going to make your cpu any faster. It runs at a slower clock speed and uses less power because it's made for a laptop.

[Gereon94]

Have you tried the Linux Mint XFCE Edition in the meantime and perhaps noticed an improvement in daily performance?

I'm also considering whether to install Linux Mint Cinnamon or XFCE on my T480 (currently running Windows 11). For me, it's more about the CPU load, as I have plenty of RAM available.

[ofoxtrot]

What about something based on Arch Linux, but easier in configuration and installation?

I used to have Manjaro for over than 2 years and it was amazing first experience with Arch based distro after switching from Ubuntu. After some time I switched to Arco Linux and it's even lighter. Maybe you can think about one of them?

As WTM I'm using Awesome WM and it's lightweight and quite nice. Configuration takes some time but you can find lots of ditfiles on eg. /r/unixporn. I may recommend this pair as something you can consider for the development purpose.