I’ll add this though will acknowledge it may not be helpful to this discussion…
My primary desktop for years has been a 2009 dell optiplex box with specs
dell [optiplex] 960 (c2q-q9400, 8gb, amd/ati cedar radeon hd 5000/6000/7350/8350)
It was originally a beta install of 17.10 (ie. back in 2017) , and soon was release-upgraded every 6 months sitting on the development cycle. I use both firefox
(for most sites) & chromium
(for anything google related), meaning I started using browsers packaged as snap in mid-2019 (when Chromium switched), and some time later firefox
too.
As I’ve stated before, snap browsers were originally slow to load post boot, but that has been drastically improved. As I’ve also stated before, I no longer notice any difference when operating between browsers when they were snap packaged, as compared with deb packaged.
Anyway, that box’s PSU died a lot of weeks ago now, and I’ve been forced to use another box. Not having internet for numerous weeks & other life issues have also delayed my getting a new ‘second-hand’ box to replace it, but until I do, I’m using a different box with the specs
dell [optiplex] 780 (c2q-q9400, 8gb, amd/ati cedar radeon hd 5000/6000/7350/8350)
This box is a 2008 dell; and externally looks very different, but as I record my hardware (for QA testing purposes) the key details are identical to my dead primary box. It has numerous Lubuntu installs I do re-install QA-testing on regularly, but whilst I have files & changes on those installs - none of my private keys exist on those installs so I’m not leaking sensitive personal data if I need to file bug reports etc. Instead on this box, the OS I treat as ‘my own’ is a Debian bookworm install (ie. testing).
This current Debian box has deb packages of both chromium
and firefox
, and I see no difference in speed between this box and my old (by not turning on) primary box (or if I reboot, select Lubuntu jammy, Lubuntu kinetic which use snap packages & compare, nor if I select the Lubuntu focal which has deb firefox
too)
Personally - I much prefer my normal Ubuntu install over this Debian box I’m having to use until I get my replacement. (I’ve been very tempted to add my keys to one of the Lubuntu installs, but they change release regularly & I’ll forget which has them, eg. focal will soon switch to become my lunar install system, so I’ve resisted doing it)
If there is a speed difference between deb packages of browsers & snap packages on these old core2quad CPUs, I sure can’t pick it, and I suspect these 13-14 year old boxes would be considered low-end these days.
FYI: I also (only yesterday) wiped my Debian bookworm install on hp 8200 elite sff (i5-2400, 8gb, nvidia quadro 600)
which is only a slightly newer box & returned it to Lubuntu. I can’t really pick differences in using that box either, but that’s as a USER, and not someone using a ‘stopwatch’ and a small sample size. That box has OpenSuSE & Fedora installs too, and to me those are the same as Ubuntu/Debian too.
Note: I think of my Lubuntu installs as Ubuntu installs; so I usually write it the way I have. Probably 80% of the time I’m using the Lubuntu session (meaning LXQt from Lubuntu), but most of my non-QA installs are multi-desktop as well; so I can select & login with Xubuntu/Xfce on occasion, Ubuntu-MATE/MATE too if I wish, even Ubuntu/GNOME for a brief change (some boxes have Ubuntu-MATE replaced by Kubuntu/KDE instead)
I still consider Lubuntu as suitable for low-end amd64 hardware, and FYI: the boxes I’ve mentioned in this thread are boxes I use; meaning they’re near my most powerful! Many of my QA-test boxes are less powerful (ie. core2duo’s).
If anyone is interested why I’m not opting to use the HP 8200 with it’s i5-2400; its nvidia card is inconsistently noisy & I prefer using the core2quad and its quieter video card; and I’ve no intention of moving cards around