Yep, I run these, especially since I have a couple of raspberry pis, that you can't do without these.

The XFce version of Linux Mint is not the same as the default XFce. It's been modified to look like the default Cinnamon Linux Mint. You can't tell them apart most of the time, so it doesn't look retro. At 600 points of cpu, xfce can run well, and work better than Lubuntu. Lubuntu is great for less than 400 points cpu, but if you have more than that, you are wasting your user experience (the xfce linux mint edition is much better than lubuntu's in user experience).

I suggest you don't disable flatpaks, you just disable it from the menu so it's not visible to be clicked. But let it in, just in case it's needed. Right click on the cinnamenu (if you install that), open preferences, and then open menu editor. There, you can make the flatpack menu entry invisible.

I've got a lot of experience in that domain, since I've upgraded/installed by helping 7-8 friends & family to switch to linux in the last year here in Greece.

So the two most important things here is the speed of the CPU, and the amount of RAM. With 4 GB RAM on both laptops, means you need to aim for XFCe or Cinnamon, not gnome/kde, and not generally heavy distros like ubuntu/fedora. Also, you need to instruct them to not open a gazillion browser tabs, they will hit the swap (and eventually crashes) with 4 GB of ram.

The Acer laptop scores only 600 points on the Passmark CPU test, which means that it's only good for XFCE. So I'd suggest the Linux Mint XFCE edition.

The HP laptop has 1400 points, which are plenty to run Cinnamon (the default Linux Mint edition). For comparison, most new laptops sold today have over 12,000 cpu points, some go to 30,000.

Mint is the easiest to update, and install new software, and it will provide a familiar look to the user. I highly suggest though a few changes done by you before you give them back their laptops (if you're the one making the installation):

[Cinnamon HP laptop]

• Install the Cinnamenu panel addon, to provide a more modern look to the main menu (and then modify it to look nice)
• Install the dconf-editor and disable tap-n-drag. This default behavior can drive mad Windows users.

[XFce Acer laptop]

• Modify the looks of the window manager to not have too many buttons, make it more windows-like.
• Unfortunately, tap-n-drag is not possible to be disabled on XFce

[for both laptops]

• Download Chrome. While Firefox is the preferred browser, Chrome is actually faster (particularly on youtube), and it consumes less RAM (tick its checkbox to consume less ram in the settings). This is seen as an anathema here, but the truth is, in lower end spec PCs, the speed difference between the two browsers is apparent.
• Setup their youtube to play at 480p by default, and disable autoplay. Anything else will be very taxing to the cpu.
• Install games from the repos for them, so they don't waste all their space with flatpaks later. Simple games like: sudo apt install aisleriot ltris gweled xye lbreakhouthd frozen-bubble gnome-mahjongg gnome-chess stockfish
• Second keyboard language if they require it
• Set up the power options to make sense
• Create a webapp launcher for Photopea (using the chrome option, as it's twice faster on photopea than firefox), so they have a photoshop clone easily accessible (gimp won't cut it).
• Set up the distro to be able to run appimages (test it with the new version of kdenlive for example from their website)
• Install OnlyOffice appimage and set it up in the menus. Onlyoffice provides better msoffice file compatibility than libreoffice.
• Install ublock origin or lite on the browsers, to avoid most ads and speed up the experience.

Proton is well developed for games, but not for apps. But Wine itself is not as well taken cared for. Without tricks, patches and prayers, most complex apps don't run on it. Or if they load, they crash quickly afterwards.

Which CAD app are you trying to run? If it's 2D, have you tried QCad/Cam?

You can install Haiku, the BeOS clone. That one runs well on less than 1 GB of RAM, and it had a new beta recently. Linux requires a minimum of 2 GB RAM these days to load 1 tab on a browser of a middle-complexity website, before it starts swapping. To really use Linux more comfortably, you'd need 4 GB, I'd say. And if you want to do 1080p video editing as well, then 8 GB. So, try Haiku.

Thank you, much appreciated! :) These days I do illustration: https://pixelfed.social/i/web/profile/495699973550816234 Not the same as collage at all, I needed some grounding after all that surrealness. :D

Question: if I download the current alpha, does it only contain Cosmic, or also the normal Gnome DE?

Either the ArcMenu extension for Gnome, or the Deepin DE.

I am indeed. Thank you for the kind words. :)

:) Thank you for this nice sub!!

DaVinci Resolve does not support Intel cards under Linux. Not iGPU, and not even the DEDICATED Intel cards. No Intel at all.

Linux also surpassed 10% in my country, Greece (10.72%).

I prepared a couple of old laptops I had around recently, to gift to my niece and cousin, and I put Debian with XFce in both of them. Worked great. And I think that's why Linux is big in Greece. Consider that when someone buys a car here, they use it until the end of its life. Very rarely they sell cars to get something new. The average car is 15 years old in Greece. I think that's the deal with old laptops and computers too: people try to extend the lives of their machines.