I like to dig through trash.
I have a shitty website, feel free to take a look. https://raccoonden.moe/
Fediverse. Also I hate that mastodon is seen as the fediverse. I had to explain to someone like they were a 5 years old I was using pleroma and they kept saying that no, I didn’t understand, we’re on mastodon. He didn’t get the concept at all.
If your laptop is on the potato side I would personally avoid kde, it’s much lighter now than it used to be but still heavier than other options. Mint looks good in my personal opinion and, again in my opinion, is a better alternative if compared to ubuntu, it’s based on it but with some improvements. The default flavor comes with cinnamon, but if your laptop struggles it’s also available with xfce, which even older machines should be able to handle.
What kind though?