Note that I’m not that knowledgable. That’s an decent laptop from 2011. You could run cinnamon, but I think you want MATE or even XFCE. You can install cinnamon and if you want more performance then switch to MATE. Cinnamon to MATE is a big improvement, MATE to XFCE a little more. Swithcing again may sound insane but most of the work is in backing everything up and then setting up programs, so you can try cinnamon for a week or two (without perfecting everything) and see if you want a lighter OS. Don’t worry it’s really easy the second time once you know how to do it (and mint has all the verification stuff built in).
Note that I’m not that knowledgable. That’s an decent laptop from 2011. You could run cinnamon, but I think you want MATE or even XFCE. You can install cinnamon and if you want more performance then switch to MATE. Cinnamon to MATE is a big improvement, MATE to XFCE a little more. Swithcing again may sound insane but most of the work is in backing everything up and then setting up programs, so you can try cinnamon for a week or two (without perfecting everything) and see if you want a lighter OS. Don’t worry it’s really easy the second time once you know how to do it (and mint has all the verification stuff built in).
(PS The other guys celeron is actually better.)