'sup? So, I am a beginner that has an old Samsung laptop from 2013 with an i3 4005U, a GeForce 710M, 500GB HDD (I will probably upgrade it to an SSD, but not for now.), 4GB 1600 MHz DDR3L RAM (the same for the HDD, will probably upgrade to 8GB some time.). It currently has Windows 10 Home but Linux is probably lighter (right?) so thats why I want to use it (+customization). I plan on dual booting the two since i might still need Windows for some cases. Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance!
(Note: I'm planning on using Linux Mint [which version should I use?] or Pop!_OS, but might look at Zorin OS Elementary OS, Deepin and maaaaaybe Ubuntu and it's flavors. I don't really have an idea on desktop environments. need suggestions.)
(repost because wrong language)
If you really need a DE then XFCE is your best choice, otherwise try out IceWM; it's the WM used by Antix Linux, so you know it's gonna be light.
Both XFCE and IceWM are know for customization, and both of them aren't the prettiest out of the box.
Forgive my beginner's-knowledgement but what is a WM?
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.
Here's a good resource: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/window_manager
Ah, thanks for the info!