I would like a Linux desktop that doesn't suck first, then they can make it pretty. Every Linux desktop I've used in the past decade is either so minimal it's barely usable, or so feature-filled it takes up gigs of ram, or in the middle with broken clunky features (where I am now with LXQt). And the worst thing is, it's all the same goddamn thing as what we had 20 years ago, but somehow keeps getting rewritten to be slower and suckier.

I installed Debian with KDE on a couple of non-techy relatives' mid-range laptops around Covid, and in spite of KDE being notorious for its abundance of features, neither of those relatives have ever complained about slowness or lag. That era seems far in the past now.

Give Mint Debian a try - I've been very happy with it.

https://linuxmint.com/download_lmde.php

Huh? Mate (formerly known as Gnome 2) is pretty functional and almost as lightweight as Xfce.

Cinnamon (comes with Linux Mint) is a modern refresh that's very functional and not at all heavy or slow.

If you don't want a desktop, I guess there are many good WMs to choose from.

Kinda same, I want there to be something reasonable that 99% of people can agree on. It shouldn't be that hard. Things seemed fine back with Gnome2, then, everything changed when the