Originally Posted by serendipity7000

I think Mint Xfce is a good one for people who are used to Windows 7 as well. I just replaced Windows 7 on a laptop with Mint Xfce. It is lighterweight but the Xfce desktop I like very much and that is partly what makes it simple and stable as well. I find it very stable and very smooth and contains about everything you need. I think if there is software installed you don't want, it is better to hide it than uninstall it to avoid the system becoming unstable if you don't know what software dependencies will also be removed at the same time.

With your hardware you can handle something heavierweight than that, but I very much prefer the look and feel of this over Ubuntu mate or Mint Mate. The menus are simple and familiar and easy to get used to. You have Firefox installed as standard and Libreoffice is included as well. The compositing (graphic effects) are very nice and lots of wallpapers to choose from to personalise it. Your PC is powerful enough to enjoy the compositing. On my older hardware I had to turn it off to increase speed.

Mint Xfce 19.3 is what I just installed - long term support until 2023. Reminds me a bit of XP and Windows 7 in places. Find it very stable and smooth and not buggy at all. The names and icons of software seem very unfamiliar at first but it doesn't take much reading about them to find out what they are and what they do.

My only comment is that sometimes the distros that try and be a bit like Windows replacements have too many options and menus for changing various things. But you can just use it out of the box and ignore all those.

For simplicity and reliability I like Bodhi Linux which comes with virtually no software installed and you can just add LibreOffice and Chromium web browser from the software management app if that is all you need! Keeps it light and simple and stable. You do need to occasionally use the terminal though, just for simple things like doing updates. But it is what got me using a terminal and it's sometimes quicker and easier than using software installer packages :-) It doesn't look a bit like Windows 7 or XP but very quick and simple to use for word processing and internet.

Try running Mint XFCE live without installing to get used to it and see what you think. I found it ran a bit slower live than when installed but you shouldn't have that issue with your hardware. I also found it burned and installed easier from dvd than usb. So you just boot up the dvd and you get the "live" distro and just play around with it. If you like it, then click on install and follow the instructions.

If you have problems installing over Windows 7 (I did initially) then wiping the drive should solve it so there's no mbr left on the drive.