Need some recommendations

Hello, my laptop's specs are i5-4200m CPU, 4GB DDR3 RAM, GPU GT750M and 1TB HDD. Soon I'd like to add new RAM up to 16GB and some not expensive small SSD for booting.
I was using Linux Mint for a while but I'd like to change it to ZorinOS.
My first question is - with my hardware would you recommend Core or Lite? I believe either one should run ok, 4GBs of RAM is not that bad anyway, but that old rusty HDD is the problem. Win10 that was installed when I bought it, was just unusable and Mint was running rather smooth but lagging while multitasking.

Second question - one of the main problems that I spent a lot of time solving on Mint 22, was that I couldn't install nvidia drivers for my gpu other than nouveau. Few days later I learned that the kernel is too new for my drivers (390) sadly. So I switched to 21 and got it running but it created other problems that weren't there before : )
So, which ZorinOS release should I install to have a full support for my hardware? Or maybe it's better to manually downgrade my kernel afterwards?

Thank you

Core. Why not get an SSD? Nite and day difference.

Well, that's my plan as I said. I'm going to upgrade this notebook with new RAM and mSATA SSD as soon as I have some spare change. But before I do so, I'm going to use it and want my experience smooth.
Nonetheless, thanks!

Core is heavy on resources so I would go with Lite, which I don't particularly like. You could also play with Q4OS Trinity Edition before you get your SSD, then switch to Zorin Core once you have your SSD.

Welcome to the Forum!

With 4GB RAM I would suggest Zorin Lite. With 16GB RAM Zorin Core. And yes, I would recommend to use a SSD when You have bought it.

The Thing with the Driver: You could use Zorin 16; that get Update Support until April 2025 if I remember correctly. there You should be able to install the Nvidia 390 Driver.

On Zorin 17, You have to use an older Kernel. I remember that we had here some Issues with the 6.8 Kernel and the 390 Driver because it isn't supported in the Kernel.

Yes, Mint's 21 Kernel was 5.something, while 22's was also 6.8.
From what I understood from ubuntu forum the last Kernel supporting my drivers is 6.2 so as far as I understand, it might be able to downgrade my Kernel manually after I get ZorinOS 17, right?
I've seen some tutorials and topics here about it.

Yes, you can downgrade it manually. When it is the 6.2 Kernel, you could take the 6.1 Kernel. It is a LTS Kernel and should get a while Support.

For some Instructions to do that, this Article is good I would say:

There will described how you can do it manually or with a Graphic Interface called Mainline tool. How You want to do this, is up to You. If You want try it with the Mainline Tool here is a Video what shows that:

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Great, thank you and everybody. I think that solves all my question but I'd rather not close the topic yet in case I face some difficulties with downgrade. Have a nice day everyone

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For the 390 driver you need kernel 5.15

Hey everyone. So I'm about to buy the SSD. Then I plan to install Zorin 17 core, change my kernel manually so it supports my gpu and I was wondering how could I remove Zorin 16 lite from HDD while keeping my files and programs. Is it possible or do I need to format it anyway?