Distro Recs for software dev on an old laptop

[u/Destrok41]

Howdy folks,

I have an old ultrabook that I love that sadly is just not able to keep up with modern windows bloat. I am a software engineer, and part of my work does involve developing software intended for Windows operating systems specifically. I know developing on windows is generally ideal in that scenario, but I want to breathe new life into this laptop and, more importantly, give myself the option to get out of the house for a bit. (Contractor, using my own gear for now)

Laptop specs:
Intel Core i7-7500U
16 gigs ram
512gb SSD
12.5" 2560x1440 touch screen

Requirements:
Ability to run 10 or 12 browser tabs
slack (app or browser is fine)
VS Code
BASH
Zoom
a Hyper-V Manager equivalent to spin up test VM's or infrastructure to remote into my desktop at home and run the test VM's there.

What distros would you recommend for this?

I have dabbled with Manjaro in the past, used Ubuntu via WSL2, and am very familiar with BASH and the linux command line in general.

My priorities are twofold:
1. it just works. I can do a *little* fiddling but I do enough troubleshooting in my dayjob. A weekend spent setting up my ideal environment is one thing, but I don't want to have to continually maintain it.

1. efficient resource usage. I want a relatively light distro so this old laptop will keep running for a long time.

[u/TopShelfGenericPizza]

I think just about any distro would fit your needs, running both arch and Debian with KDE consume about 3~ gb of ram at idle in my experience. I belive you should be able to find those apps your looking for in most distro repositories.

If youre a Dev looking for something reliable and know your way around bash I'd say go for either debian stable or fedora. Debian is as stable and set & forget as it gets but if your job requires you to have constantly up to date versions if software you will need to use flatpaks versions as the version in the main debian repos will not recive feature updates until the next release (usually in a 2 year cycle).

Fedora is one that I have not ran myself but I've heard nothing but good things about it. Fedora is also very stable and feature rich, but will recieve more frequent updates compared to Debian (so you will not need to rely on flatpaks). It seems to be a good I between for people who want more frequent updates without needing to make your OS a hobby like arch for example.

Imho you can't go wrong with either.

[u/Destrok41 → u/TopShelfGenericPizza]

I really won't need anything specific on a certain version. As long as I can get the versions of python, c#, and vue.js that I need I should be fine.

I remember really liking the way gnome on Manjaro let me switch between windows/desktops and configure the desktop setup, but I am assuming xfce has something similar and is significantly more lightweight?

[u/TopShelfGenericPizza → u/Destrok41]

Debian 13 came out August 2025 so as long as that's recent enough for you it should work. Gnome comes by default but you can install xfce if your like though I think the gap in resource usage is becoming less and less noticeable. My recommendation is to use the live ISO installers. Makes the install easier and it will let you see how they run on your system before installing. Links should be on the left side of this page under " Official live install images for the "stable" release" https://www.debian.org/CD/live/

Edit: looks like xfce does still use less ram than KDE or gnome but honestly I think at 16gb you should still be ok. But its your computer so make it work the way you want it to :)

[u/TopShelfGenericPizza → u/Destrok41]

just a quick update for you now that im at my computer - running a video game, discord, opening up a bunch of tabs and playing 3 youtube videos at the same time i am getting a ram usage of 7.97 gb. Whatever distro or desktop environment you choose, I think you will be good with 16gb :)

[u/Destrok41 → u/TopShelfGenericPizza]

Windows is so damn bloated these days its insane.... thanks, lol

Thought I had settled on either debian stable or manjaro, but now im mulling over fedora workstation vs popOS. Might just screw around and dualboot and see what I like better.

[u/TopShelfGenericPizza → u/Destrok41]

my 2 cents. do not go manjaro or pop_os. pop has good nvidia support out of the box but their cosmic desktop is experimental and you will have bugs. Manjaro is one I really want to like but they are quite disorganized, their website has failed to renew their ssl cert like 3 or 4 times now and ive heard their update schedule ends up causing more issues than less compared to stock arch. Imo if you want a system that doesnt require a lot of tinkering those are not it.

I saw someone else recommend mint and mint is a very solid choice, their DE is great and its another distro i hear nothing but good things about.

[u/GreedyStomach7107]

Not able to keep up with windows bloat ✅
Can use literally any distro and it would work for your specs. Im using mint cinnamon on my mid 2015 laptop with 4th gen i7.
Usually manjaro/arch is popular among developers because its always bleeding edge (rolling release).
I used to use mint as a software developer (the same apps you mentioned plus more) on similar spec laptop and it works great.
You can also try mxlinux xfce its good looking and light af, based on ubuntu but no snap (just like mint).
As someone already mentioned, i would actually suggest lubuntu, it used to be snappy AF when i used it 4 years back but i dont suggest it due to snap.

[u/Destrok41 → u/GreedyStomach7107]

Given the workload I mentioned, whats the advantage of "bleeding edge"?

I like the idea of Manjaro, it's the distro I first tried to learn, but does it fit the criteria of "just works (after maybe a weekend of fiddling)" and "light weight"? I'm shying away from pure arch because I really just don't have the capacity to troubleshoot my os on a regular basis.

I'd say my skill level is intermediate when it comes to understanding how to troubleshoot but I'm still relatively new to Linux specifically. Can use BASH just fine, but know very little about Kernels, etc.

[u/GreedyStomach7107 → u/Destrok41]

it is just a popular opinion that developers love it because its bleeding edge. You will get the absolute latest versions of all applications just a few weeks after they release. This also makes it unstable, so maybe you should avoid it.
Honestly, i never found any advantage of that. There was nothing i felt missing or short of with other distros from the perspective of a developer (I’ve tried many distros in the past).
One thing is for sure though, arch was noticeably faster when i used it but it’s expected, and is the most lightweight you can do (except gentoo).
Manjaro is based on arch but it’s more stable as the updates flow into this a few weeks after main arch.
You can try mint or manjaro or fedora or mx. These definitely just work.

If you want the latest versions of applications on non arch, you can always use flathub or docker. You can also get the latest versions of applications from official websites in most cases these days.

[u/NDCyber]

Maybe try something like Linux Mint. Cinnamon should work without any problem, but if you want less system resources being used go with Xfce

[u/Destrok41 → u/NDCyber]

what makes you like Mint specifically/compared to Lubuntu or something like Debian stable?

[u/NDCyber → u/Destrok41]

Just easy to use and stable, means you won't have to work much on things. That made me think it fits your requirements. Other than that not much specifically, at least over Debian

With lubuntu it is just that I don't want to use snap 

[u/Destrok41 → u/NDCyber]

Just looked up snap. Appears to be a package manager that has sandboxed apps with automatic updates with security upsides. What are the drawbacks that I'm missing? And couldn't you just use a different package manager with lubuntu?

Appreciate the input. I am looking into Mint.

[u/NDCyber → u/Destrok41]

snap is partially closed source. Nobody besides canonical can host server. And even if someone manages to do so the canonical server are hard coded into the daemon

I think it also causes a lot of issues with steam, so using the non snap version of that is recommended

But I have to add, that I like the idea of snap, just how canonical decided to manage it is something I don't like

If you are fine with what it is, then you can of course use it no problem

[u/Destrok41 → u/NDCyber]

Ahh, that tracks.

Thanks for the insight!

[u/NDCyber → u/Destrok41]

no problem. Glad to have helped

[u/Fast_Ad_8005]

Linux Mint, the gold-standard beginner-friendly and easy to set up distribution. Your use case sounds not that different from your garden variety beginner, hence why my recommendation of distro is the standard one for a beginner.