I own a ThinkPad X61s with zorin os 17.2 installed and it feels more slower than zorin 16. i installed the budgie desktop but it still feels slow. i was wondering if there was a desktop environment that looked good and was fast and can run on 4gb ram. would kde be a good choice? or cinnamon?
I would highly recommend Zorin OS Lite, then. It uses the XFCE desktop environment which is lightweight.
Other options are not officially supported, though you can certainly install them. The only "downside" is that themes may not apply consistently with the rest of Zorin OS' styling.
PS: Changed category from Customization to Chat about Zorin
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Because of Your 4GB RAM, I would agree to @zenzen and would suggest to try Zorin Lite (or another xfce distro like MX Linux for Example). Plasma and Cinnamon shouldn't make a big Difference in Comparison to Gnome. LxQT could be a Possibility, too.
EDIT: Ups, big Mistake! ''Plasma and Cinnamon shouldn't make a big Difference in Comparison to Gnome.'' I correct that.
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And I will be the 3rd person to recommend Zorin OS lite, as that distro was literally designed for slower computer's. Infact, when the OS was originally tested after release, it was found to be 2 times faster then Windows 7, and 4 times faster then Windows 10, and especially now with Win 11 24H2 with forced recall.
Just my opinion folks, but I believe that an OS should work with the computer hardware, optimize it, so that you can use your computer. I am not a fan of what Microsoft is doing with Windows11, where it uses up 50% of the computer's performance, so despite the top of the line hardware, still can't run games for nothing.
Linux is life!
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You could try the 32-bit Plasma edition of Q4OS or their 64-bit Trinity Desktop which is basically KDE 3, hence the name Trinity DE.
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earlier zorin os 16 core worked very smooth on the thinkpad, tho
ya think plain ol debian with kde would be good
also if i install kde on zorin and remove the zorin desktop would it be better in performance
The problem with KDE that is available with Zorin is only 5.24. If speed is your desire then PCLinuxOS Debian Plasma edition is the way to go. It uses Pipewire for audio, no systemd gooball cluttering the system and no pulse audio, plus Liquorix 6.12 kernel. Boot time is fast as is time from login screen to Desktop. I am on the PCLOS Debian forum too.
No no no, don't go removing the Zorin desktop, other's have done that, and ruined their OS, requiring a re-installation of the OS.
If you want to install another DE you can, and then select it at the login screen, after booting into the OS. But I strongly recommend against removing the Zorin desktop.
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Whilst that is true Zorin is stuck at Plasma 5.24 which is not as good as 5.27.
Wouldn't be a bad Choice.
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Which is what PCLinuxOS Debian KDE is! 
Last time I was running Zorin 17 I successfully removed the Zorin Desktop, as I only wanted Plasma and Enlightenment. No issues.
Did Plasma and Enlightenment not workout as planned?
Zorin Lite.
Period.
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Yes it did workout. I have used the drive that had Zorin on it to hold Q4OS which I cloned from the internal HDD as it might be failing as very noisy. I also need to clone my PCLinuxOS onto the drive that holds PCLinuxOS .rpm. The only issue I had were:
- KDE is only at 5.24 and not 5.27
- Enlightenment notified me of a newer version, but was not possible to update.
I'm in due course going to give PCLinuxOS Debian xfce a run and will be making a video on it in due course. (Remember Zorin Lite will not be supported in 2029. So PCLinuxOS Debian xfce might be worth migrating too as that is what Zorin Lite uses.