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1 • Xubuntu (by Wine Curmudgeon on 2012-11-19 11:20:17 GMT from United States)
Been running Xubuntu since 9.04, and save for one horrible release around 10.04, it is quick, stable and easy to use. The current 12.04 LTS is an excellent effort, and does most of what Mint/Cinnamon does without the occasional glitch of the latter.
2 • @xubuntu applicaitons menu (by greg on 2012-11-19 11:20:23 GMT from Slovenia)
i too had a difficulty adding a launcher just this weekend. In the end i did it manually by creating desktop file in text editor etc. however this kind of things should be done with GUI perhaps in even simpler way.
3 • Xubuntu (by kc1di on 2012-11-19 11:38:49 GMT from United States)
Thanks for the review, I too have had the same problem with XFCE menu editing. It has long been one of the major hold ups in this D.E. IMHO they would do well to build a good Menu editor. This is not Xubuntu's doing though I'm sure there are devs. there that could take on the task, So far as I know XFCE Devs have refused to do it and I haven't found any others that have save maybe mint xfce , but I'm not sure on that one as I don't have it installed at the moment. anyway thanks for your reviews I always enjoy reading them. Happy Thankgiving to all you who live in lands that celebrate it :)
4 • Xubuntu (and Lubuntu) (by gvnmcknz on 2012-11-19 12:08:06 GMT from United Kingdom)
Xubuntu or Lubuntu are both excellent, and deserve more attention. Most of what I am interested in (apart from distrohopping), is browser based anyway. One WINE program and a decent word processor and I'm good to go! The whole of the Ubuntu repositories are there if you need more.
Lubuntu is especially easy for Launchers, a right click in the menu, send to desktop and it's done.
Both X/Lubuntu are ideal in older systems/netbooks etc.. If bling is less important than functionality and speed they're the way to go. Faced with the Win8/UEFI debacle then we may need to get the most out of older hardware. Regards gvnmcknz
5 • Ubuntu XFCE menu editor (by silent on 2012-11-19 12:14:33 GMT from Europe)
Apparently, Alacarte is the menu editor mentioned in the article about Xubuntu. It was broken in 12.10, but a fix is already in the pipeline (see bug reports). One can also try Xame or LXMenuEditor as a replacement.
6 • Xubuntu 12.04 (by LAZA on 2012-11-19 12:17:52 GMT from Germany)
I myself use Xubuntu since the trendy Ubuntu 10.04 was a fail (IMHO) on my two machines and am happy with the smoothness and look - fast and reliable also on older hardware!
The 12.04 LTS-version comes with Abiword and Gnumeric which is for the most people adequat and supported till April 2015 (sadly no five years support like GNOME and KDE)...
7 • DragonflyBSD (by Slacker_Mike on 2012-11-19 12:41:47 GMT from United States)
Thank you for the review of DragonflyBSD. I have never tried this particular BSD project before but I have always found it interesting.
It would be interesting to hear from someone who has deployed DragonflyBSD in a production environment to hear how the HAMMER file system benefits them.
8 • Debian GNU/Hurd (by nick on 2012-11-19 12:58:35 GMT from Greece)
I think Hurd has init set to systemctl reboot by default. Pun intended.
9 • Udev fork (by Microlinux on 2012-11-19 13:20:17 GMT from France)
Excellent news for all the Slackware and *BSD users out there. And one in the eye for Lennart Poettering.
10 • Gnome3, Gtk3, systemd, udev and all that ... (by FipRadioFan on 2012-11-19 13:22:29 GMT from France)
The 'Ignorant Guru' is author of the excellent new file manager SpaceFM. In his blog he frequently vents his frustration with developments emanating from the RedHat/Fedora world that change the way GNU/Linux works and that seem to be designed to leave very little choice for everybody else but to follow suit. Articles like these ...
Udisks2: Another Loss For Linux http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/udisks2-another-loss-for-linux/
Red Hat Flag http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/08/19/red-hat-flag/
Gentoo On systemd, Torvalds On Bullshit, udev Forked http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/gentoo-systemd-torvalds/
GNOME (et al): Rotting In Threes http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/11/05/gnome-et-al-rotting-in-threes/
... and the following comments make very interesting reading. Although I cannot say that I understand every last bit of what's being discussed there, I too get the feeling that not all the changes being planned and worked on behind the scenes (systemd, wayland etc.) are for the better of GNU/Linux.
11 • DVD Edition of Xubuntu (by impossiblescissors on 2012-11-19 13:37:30 GMT from United States)
If you like Xubuntu but wish it had some of the heavier applications like LibreOffice, I definitely recommend the Xfce edition of Linix Mint 13. It's actually based on Mint 13 plus Xfce rather than Xubuntu, but the user experience is similar. I actually prefer the way Mint 13 Xfce is configured, with the single taskbar and MintMenu.
12 • Re: 5, Ubuntu XFCE menu editor (by FipRadioFan on 2012-11-19 13:40:27 GMT from France)
Funny coincidence. A while back I posted a short comment on the Ignorant Guru's blog about the lack of a native menu editor in XFCE and the usage of Alacarte:
I always liked to arrange my desktop main menu the way I preferred it, with my own categories, sub-categories, nested folders and all. Until recently this wasn?t possible in XFCE. About two years ago one of the XFCE devs started to make XFCE ?Free Desktop compliant? which apparently was a major effort because it kept him busy for a long time. When he had finished his task, XFCE 4.8 was released. In the release announcement it said that one could now edit the XFCE menu with any ?Free Desktop compliant? menu editor. Great! ? except that I couldn?t think of any other editor than Alacarte, a sluggishly performing Python application from the Gnome desktop. In order to try this out I booted up a Xubuntu Live-CD, opened Synaptic, selected Alacarte ? and was shocked to see that the installation of this lo
usy little editor was trying to pull in 98 (!) dependencies, presumably the entire Gnome desktop and more. Who knows.
To me the lesson of all of this is, that sometimes it is better not to comply with standards set by people who have their own agenda and whose motives are dubious .
Source: http://igurublog.wordpress.com/2012/03/11/udisks2-another-loss-for-linux/
13 • Light distro for older hardware? (by Leo on 2012-11-19 14:19:41 GMT from United States)
A couple weekends ago I tried Bodhi, Xubuntu and Lubuntu as a means to revive my first generation eeepc, which was running Bodhi but the USB it was running from got corrupted.
None of these would work, since Ubuntu doesn't support non-PAE processors (wise decision)
I installed Debian Mint XFCE. Not very impressed, it came with a LOT of software I didn't want or need. I guess.
Where do you turn for a light distro these days? Requirements? Modern kernel (hardware recognition), up to date Firefox/Chrome and Flash/plugins
THanks!
14 • @12 (by lutz on 2012-11-19 14:25:14 GMT from Germany)
use a WM and configure your menu in old plain text-files. works everytime ;-)
15 • @13 (by Donkeyotay on 2012-11-19 15:05:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
Try Crunchbang. I'm running on two ten+ year old laptops that were running Win98.
16 • Regarding the download of updates during Xubuntu installation (by KansasNoob on 2012-11-19 15:22:50 GMT from United States)
I noticed in the review Jesse said; "the system installer asks if we would like to download all available updates at install time and I opted into this to avoid manually downloading updates post-install. However, the first time I logged into Xubuntu a pop-up appeared to let me know there were 21 updates available to be downloaded."
I believe after logging in the first time you were notified that there were 21 updates available to be "installed" ;^)
In other words "download" means just that, NOT download "and install". If so instructed the available updates are downloaded during installation but not installed until post-install.
In fact consider the other option offered at the same point during OS installation - "Install this third party software" ;^)
Had you not chosen to download those updates you would have to wait for the "software-updater/update-manager" to run it's normal cycle before you'd be notified of any updates.
That said the installer dialogue should possibly be edited so it says "If you choose this option the updates will be available for review and installation after OS installation is complete".
Kudos for a great review though, both Xubuntu and Lubuntu are great options for those who will soon be missing Metacity and Gnome Panel :^)
17 • Re:15 (by Leo on 2012-11-19 15:29:45 GMT from United States)
Good idea. Debian based, so I should have access to anything I might need. Thanks, I'll try that next time!
18 • Crunchbang's size (by Leo on 2012-11-19 15:38:48 GMT from United States)
Mmm ... why is the image size 700 MB? Does it allow you to do a minimal installation? That was one of my issues with Mint Debian, it installed SOOOO much crap, and it takes forever on a usb drive. Thanks for any info! I really need something like a chromebook: connect to wifi and launch a browser to play internet radio. The eeepc is mostly dead, except for streaming radio
19 • #18 (by anticapitalista on 2012-11-19 15:43:03 GMT from Greece)
Try antiX-core (c135MB) or antiX-base (c355MB)
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
20 • Re: @13 (by peer on 2012-11-19 15:56:31 GMT from Netherlands)
Try Peppermint. At this moment Peppermint 3 is running on my eeepc (1000H). It run's smoothly.
21 • @13 - Bodhi (by Uncle Slacky on 2012-11-19 16:10:31 GMT from France)
The latest Bodhi (2.1) works just fine on my eeePC 701 4G - not sure why you'd have problems with it. Alternatively, you could try Swift Linux (essentially LMDE but with ICEWM as the window manager). Crunchbang and AntiX are also viable alternatives, but not as pretty as Bodhi.
22 • Light distro (by scale on 2012-11-19 16:13:46 GMT from Spain)
@13: Crunchbang, Archbang, AntiX, Puppy, Salix LXDE edition, Fedora LXDE edition, CDLinux CE, PCLinuxOS LXDE edition, Vector Linux, Slitaz, http://www.remastersys.com/downloads/rem-lxde-lts-final-i386.iso
Antix, Salix, PCLinux, Slitaz and the last link offer built-in remastering tools, so you could adjust it to your needs. Especially with Slitaz it is possible to build a very light system with many apps. Salix is spectacular too. For a lighter distro try Tiny Core :)
23 • Re: 21 (by Leo on 2012-11-19 16:47:24 GMT from United States)
Hi Slacky, please see this http://forums.bodhilinux.com/index.php?/topic/6485-how-to-install-bodhi-210-on-non-pae-computer/
24 • @23 - Bodhi PAE (by Uncle Slacky on 2012-11-19 17:04:55 GMT from France)
That might explain it - I installed 2.0.1 from scratch, then upgraded to 2.1 via normal updates. I'm currently running the linux-image-generic kernel (version 3.2.0.33, presumably provided by Ubuntu 12.04) without problems, though.
There are also newer kernels compiled especially for early Celeron & Atom netbooks available here:http://tinyurl.com/DavAlan if you need to be up-to-date kernel-wise.
25 • re. No.13 (by Smasher on 2012-11-19 17:35:10 GMT from United Kingdom)
Taken a look in the kennel recently? Amazing progress for Puppy Precise, Puppy Slacko and Puppy Carolina. As far as lightness, speed and comprehensiveness are concerned, you won't be disappointed. Of course, you will get Abiword and other lightweights, but a few clicks in the repos and you're ready to draft a new constitution, business plan or nobel prize acceptance lecture. And you can put away all those DVD-RW discs - this really is life without the backpack.
26 • Minimum System Requirements of Peppermint? (by DavidEF on 2012-11-19 17:42:40 GMT from United States)
Does anyone know the bare minimum system requirements for Peppermint OS? I just waded through their site and searched the forums, and couldn't find an answer, although surely it's there, somewhere...?
I've got an old PII tower that belongs to a friend of mine that is not currently working. It came with Windows 98. If I get it fixed, I was thinking of upgrading it to linux. I haven't yet looked at the hardware specs, but the label on the front says Pentium II, so I'm sure it qualifies as "low-resource" by almost any definition. I'm a little familiar with Puppy linux. I've also played around with DSL, Vector, and others in the past. So, I'm not "looking" for a light distro, cause I know I can do that already. But it wouldn't hurt to consider all options, therefore my request above.
27 • @13 and The Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 17:44:40 GMT from Germany)
@ Feature Story / Jesse
If you are complaining about Parole, you must be complaining about every Xfce component. Xfce's goal is to deliver a lightwight Gnome-Alternative, so every implemented part, like Thunar and Parole as two examples, are quite similar to Gnome 2 Apps, in the mentioned case Nautilus and Totem. Both are based on Gtk3 now, Xfce still uses Gtk2 as their framework, so it is a good idea in sense of being lightwight only to include Gtk2-based apps. Parole does just fine on all my videos like Totem does, but is a lot more lightwight, integrates into Xfce a lot better and has no Gnome dependencies. It's like Xfburn in comparison to Brasero. You can complain about it being not as feature rich as it's Gnome alternative, but you are free to install it afterwards, as well as the whole LibreOffice Suite. But I like that Xubuntu does not force people who need a lightwight desktop, what is the intention of Xfce, to uninstall such bloat, instead of leaving it to the user to install additional apps afterwards, like they are needed - which is in my opinion always the better idea.
@13 I too recommend trying CrunchBang. It using Debian+OpenBox, damn fast and lightwight but nevertheless really easy to use and it delivers everything you might need. Arch is always a nice idea on low end PCs, too, as you can configure it according to what the PC is able to handle. Another option is a Minimal X Install of openSUSE 12.2 and configure the PC with OpenBox or something lightwight as that. Or just install openSUSE 12.2 with LXDE, which is very lightwight too, but you can start right away using it. :)
Greetings Pierre
28 • #Leo (by Ika on 2012-11-19 18:02:30 GMT from Spain)
If you like E 17, can try MacPup. It looks great and the iso about 150 MB. Or, well, other Puppies.
29 • Distro Lightness (by DavidEF on 2012-11-19 18:05:15 GMT from United States)
In the interest of giving back to this conversation from which I've made a request, I'd like to add a +1 to Puppy linux. In my opinion, it is an extremely versatile, flexible, useful lightweight distro. I've had Puppy 3.x installed on an old Compaq with a Cyrix 5x86 processor and 16MB RAM. It didn't have usb, ethernet, or a pci bus, and the internal modem was somewhat less than 56k. I had no way of using this thing, but it was fun to watch Puppy humming happily along on it.
I've used Puppy for working on Windows computers, recovering files and such. I once had an old laptop that I let my very young daughter play with. I'd installed an educational games version of puppy 1.x that I'd found somewhere. She loved it. I've seen Puppy run on hardware when nothing else would. The only reason I don't use it on my main machine is that I prefer the heavier applications, so it makes more sense to use a larger OS that is configured with those applications already. But I still use Puppy live CD's when I just need to work on a (usually crashed) Windows computer, or quickly check for linux compatibility.
30 • Xfce and components (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 18:16:48 GMT from Canada)
>> "If you are complaining about Parole, you must be complaining about every Xfce component."
That's obviously not the case. I pointed out things I liked and things I didn't about the default Xubuntu desktop environment. Just because I didn't like one thing doesn't mean I dislike them all.
>> " like Thunar and Parole as two examples, are quite similar to Gnome 2 Apps, in the mentioned case Nautilus and Totem."
I didn't mention Nautilus nor Totem in my review.
>> " what is the intention of Xfce, to uninstall such bloat, instead of leaving it to the user to install additional apps afterwards, like they are needed - which is in my opinion always the better idea."
Which is why I suggested the idea of two Xubuntu editions, one for people who want a light, uncluttered install and one for people who want more features and applications.
31 • salentOS (by Barnabyh on 2012-11-19 18:28:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
OMG, please not yet another Ubuntu based 'new' distribution. By dog, I can't take it anymore.
On a more constructive note, I can second and recommend Puppy and CrunchBang to Leo as well, or try Zenwalk for a light and fast Xfce base.
32 • Xbuntu (by Johannes on 2012-11-19 18:35:10 GMT from Germany)
Last time I tried Xubuntu it wasn't stable at all. Neither was Zenwalk, a nice project that I used to install some years ago. Nice, but not usable on a daily basis. On the vontrary, Linux Mint (Cinnamon) reveals very stable on daily use. And they say next version will be better and even more stable. A distro to get things done :-)
33 • @13 Light distro (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-11-19 18:39:32 GMT from Luxembourg)
Snow Linux also has a Debian-based brand with 3 desktops to choose from (Gnome, XFCE and E17). I will give the Enlightenment version a try as soon as I have the time:
http://www.snowlinux.de/449-snowlinux-3-download
Being Debian and being E17 should be pretty lightweight on older hardware as long as it is supported.
Now, if your hardware is really old and nothing else works, you can try DSL:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall
Still with a 2.4-series kernel...
34 • @13 Light distro (by Koroshiya Itchy on 2012-11-19 18:43:54 GMT from Luxembourg)
The list of distros for old computers:
http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+Computers
35 • @ 30 by Jesse (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 18:49:15 GMT from Germany)
Sure you did not mention Totem or Nautilus in particular, but you wrote: >>Having AbiWord as the only productivity program and Parole as the video player stuck me as unusual and not all that appealing. <<
Unusual and unappealing I would call other programs than Parole for example. Why? Just because you would call a Totem replacement under Gnome 3 for sure unusual, too. With Parole it is just the same. Parole is (not necessarily) a part of the Xfce desktop environment. So replacing it with something else would not integrate as well as Parole and would be unusual - not otherwise.
If you want other apps for multimedia you are absolutely free to install them out of the large Ubuntu package repositories. It is better to give lightweight apps and the possibility to install other apps easily instead of deliver a lot of quite bloated software. So if you ask me, there is no need for any other edition, because you can easily turn that lightweight one into that with more features and apps and you can even do it the way you want.
Another point is my conclusion that you have to complain about the other components of Xfce as well if you complain about Parole. I apologize if I was led to a false conclusion but it simply seamed obvious that you would have to complain about all the other lightweight parts of Xfce too, if you complain about Parole and it's less features than other available apps, because Xfce and all of it's components - as I already pointed out - are designed to be lightweight and having as less dependencies as possible. To achieve that you have to make compromises and you simply have to abandon some features. And if you don't like that about Parole it seamed logical that you would not like it about the other components as well. That was all I wanted to say. :)
Greetings!
36 • @32 by Johannes (by Pierre on 2012-11-19 19:03:27 GMT from Germany)
Don't know what problems you have had with Xubuntu or Zenwalk, I never had some with any of the Xfce-distros. Although you are right, Mint + Cinnamon are really stable already, my girlfriend is using Mint 13 with Cinnamon and is really happy with it. And so am I. ;)
I personally use openSUSE 12.2 - really stable. On top of the KDE-version I installed the i3 tiling window manager and configured it to my needs and that really works like a charm! Rock solid, stable and damn fast! With hitting enter on the login screen you are right on the desktop, no delay, even though I configured Kmix, Kwallet and some more of my beloved K-stuff to start with it. And i3 really is a desktop to simply get things done! I know, does not look as good as Cinnamon or all the other nice and shiny desktops, but it is damn functional and you really get work done lightning fast. :)
And that's not said to show off or something like that. One really needs the wish to deal with the tiling concept but as soon as you know how it works, you do not want to use anything else anymore. At least that's what I experienced and that does not mean it fits your needs and working habit as well as it does fit mine. :) That is the beauty of open source. There is so much nice software to be explored.
Greetings and much fun with Cinnamon!
37 • XFCE and comments @30 (by Bob on 2012-11-19 19:04:44 GMT from Canada)
Jesse, I'm sorry but I disagree with the suggestion of a second Xubuntu edition and disagree that the choices of Parole and Abiword are not that appealing.
My main fear is that with many projects developer time is at such a premium reviews which criticize lighter software choices and suggest having a dvd with more mainstream choices will cause projects to discontinue using compact disks entirely and go only to dvds. That has already happened with many projects and with some computers that can make use of a distribution difficult.
For example, you reviewed Xubuntu, which comes on CD. Linux Mint XFCE which comes from the same Ubuntu base and has the same desktop environment does not come in a CD edition.
There are still very usable older computers without dvd burners and even a few without dvd players.
If someone has no dvd burner on his or her only computer then a dvd only distro becomes difficult to download and use. It can sometimes be difficult to save the image to a usb drive in such a way that it will boot some older systems, so the various ways of saving to a usb drive will usually, but not always, help.
I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from and in view of the contraints on developer time, it seems to me suggestions of using dvds will often have the effect of ending use of compact disks. I'd rather see no office suite and install Libreoffice afterwards than lose the bootable CD.
Bob
38 • @13 Lightweight Distros (by Fencemeister717 on 2012-11-19 19:05:43 GMT from United States)
I too run old systems frequently. After downloading mostly live CD sized distros for the last 7 or 8 years, my advice to you as far as for recent ones would be Zenwalk or Semplice. Both very speed and run like a raped ape. Another would be the tried and proven PCLinuxOS which I have been using on the same machine since 2007 without a single fail.
39 • Peppermint Requirements (by fencemeister717 on 2012-11-19 19:16:48 GMT from United States)
well i can tell you that i ran it on an hp pII with 96 mb ram. It sucked. so i replaced the 32mb stick with a 128mb stick giving it 192mb total and it did just fine for browsing al gore's www. Im sure video streaming would take more ram but not as much as most others
40 • SalentOs And Peppermint (by Roy H Huddleston on 2012-11-19 19:20:39 GMT from United States)
I just noticed that both use the OpenBox. I would like to see a contrast and comparison of the two. I noticed that SalentOs offers two versions of its OpenBoxl
41 • CD vs DVD (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 19:24:27 GMT from Canada)
>> "I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from"
I agree wholeheartedly. Projects aiming at lower end hardware should keep CD images. Still, given the relatively small amount of time it takes to make a larger image once a base line is set down and given the large size of the Xubuntu community I really don't think it's realistic to think it's an either/or situation. Lots of projects smaller than Xubuntu have multiple spins of varying sizes or with different desktop environments. I don't think it's unrealistic to suggest Xubuntu could have two editions, Normal and Full.
42 • @32-other stable desktops (by Bob on 2012-11-19 19:26:14 GMT from Canada)
Johannes mentions Mint/Cinnamon as being stable in everyday use.
This past spring in updating both my desktop and my wife's I looked at the Mint forums. At that time (just after the release of Mint 13) there were a few problems being reported that were exclusive to Cinnamon which were not being complained of in Mate. Cinnamon was then quite new and probably those have since been cleaned up.
My computer got switched to Mint 13 with Mate and my wife's to Mint 13 with XFCE and both have been exceptionally stable and trouble-free (with the exception of the well-known Broadcomm installation but which we ran into on her computer.)
I had tried Xubuntu 12.04 and had a few problems which probably, with the passage of time to squash bugs, have been fixed.
My experience with Ubuntu/Xubuntu is that it is better to wait a month or more after release before installing. I also usually wait a few days after release before installing Mint.
b
43 • Reviews.. (by Alex on 2012-11-19 20:14:22 GMT from United States)
Comment deleted (off-topic).
44 • @13/Light Distros (by mz on 2012-11-19 20:15:15 GMT from United States)
I'd definitely give PCLOS LXDE a try if you want something light & up to date that does it all out of the box. I really like the main edition, and all versions come with good hardware detection & stuff like flash included. I find firefox updates hit the repos within a week of release, and they run very stable. I noticed there are 2 LXDE CDs, the main one is 641 MB and the little one is 478. I think it's also good that you can install the PAE kernel from the from the repos after install if you want to, but it's not on the CD by default. I only use the main version, but I'm guessing that PCLOS LXDE is also first rate.
45 • Xfce is the new Gnome (by John Dough on 2012-11-19 20:22:46 GMT from Canada)
and I love it, when you are forced to use an older machine temporarily (my main machine has Kubuntu 12.04.1 on it), Xubuntu does the job.
46 • Xfce is the new Gnome @45 (by Jimshed on 2012-11-19 20:44:00 GMT from United States)
I wholeheartedly agree with that. The best distro I have is made by myself from the Ubuntu Minimal installation disk. I then just added Xfce. I have the fastest distro in the world.
47 • @41 (by Patrick on 2012-11-19 20:57:34 GMT from United States)
I can already hear the moaning about "Not another *buntu!" if there would be two Xubuntu editions!
No, the point of Xubuntu is to be a light edition of Ubuntu and it does that well as it is. Also, the names of the "heavy" apps are quite well known and can be installed if they are wanted. If the system came with the well-known heavy apps on the other hand, few would know what to use as a light equivalents (I actually didn't know about Parole until reading your review today). I think it is great for these lighter applications to get the exposure and testing, and subsequent improvements that come from being pre-installed.
48 • Thank you all! (by Leo on 2012-11-19 21:09:55 GMT from United States)
Thank you all for such a fantastic breadth of responses. I have actually one install where I started with mini.iso, and install minimal-kde, and later on razor-qt. That thing FLIES on a Dell Mini.
I think, most "light distros" take it wrong. They install a responsive desktop with gigs and gigs of apps of all types, in order to give you a full desktop. I think it would be much better for the installer to let you choose a few options. You start with a bare desktop, and then you can choose a few big meta-packages: PIM, OFFICE, etc. If you don't want ANY of that, you are left with a basic functional desktop, a terminal and a web browser. The rest, you can install as needed. It seems to me like this is the Puppy philosophy. I'll take a look ...
Cheers! Leo
49 • Multiple purposes (by Jesse on 2012-11-19 21:17:07 GMT from Canada)
>> "No, the point of Xubuntu is to be a light edition of Ubuntu and it does that well as it is."
I don't think that is the case, really. Xubuntu has never been all that light compared to other distributions. When Ubuntu was still using GNOME 2, both Ubuntu and Xubuntu used nearly the same amount of resources. Even now, with the Xubuntu developers using fairly light apps, their memory foot print is around 180MB of RAM, just to login to the desktop. That's about the same amount as Mint with the MATE desktop. Compare Xubuntu to Zenwalk, which also uses Xfce and more mainstream apps, and Zenwalk uses around 90MB of RAM, half of Xubuntu's foot print.
Xubuntu, in my mind, is not about being light so much as giving people in the Ubuntu community a stable GUI. With Ubuntu and Kubuntu and Mint going through big changes, Xubuntu (thanks to Xfce) has a consistent GUI. It's nice Xubuntu is also a little lighter than Unity and KDE, but it's a fairly thin margin.
50 • #41 CD vs. DVD by Jesse (by Ika on 2012-11-19 21:18:44 GMT from Spain)
I agree it always is wellcomed two variants. Why? Because a newcomer in Linux, have no idea about this OS. He/she don't know nothing about how it work, about repositories, packages, names of the programs he/she want or need etc., may have, at least, a complete usable OS. Once having learned enough, will chose the minimal version.
@mz Yes, PCLinuxOS is a great distro. I'm using it too, but with KDE, Xfce and E17. Fast and stable.
51 • Seriously? (by Ralph on 2012-11-19 23:10:28 GMT from United States)
"If someone has no dvd burner on his or her only computer then a dvd only distro becomes difficult to download and use."
Rather than spend effort in creating a DVD, why not just boot from a USB flash drive? If the target PC is so antiquated that its BIOS doesn't accommodate booting from a USB device... is it reasonable to expect it has enough RAM to run the bloaty, DVD-sized distro?
52 • Light or what? (by Pajarilo on 2012-11-19 23:30:44 GMT from Austria)
I tested xubuntu and lubuntu, and I must say: lubuntu is very unstable, crashes again and again, and xubuntu is about 100 years behind gnome second. What I do not understand is why there are dozens of so-called light distros over 1 GB? They come with a lot of packages that make a slim girl to a big fat ass. I just see hier a Distro named Manjaro with lxde and 1.2 gb .. Who needs that? Make it simple, gays, everybody can choose the soft he needs.
53 • About E17 - light distros (by forlin on 2012-11-20 01:01:22 GMT from Portugal)
E17 development has been resumed and the final release was announced for 21st Dez (yes, this year). For the *bunto users of light versions, who also like Enlightenment, the good news is that there's a ppa that will distribute each development release, up to the final one. That will allow its installation on your current (*bunto) distro, for a test drive, with a minimal download. http://strano.org/files/announcing_official_ppa_for_the_efl_and_e17.php
54 • #44 #50 (by Baltazar on 2012-11-20 01:14:29 GMT from Puerto Rico)
I have like PCLinuxOS since the kde 3.5 days... good distro. But I have a couple of times (like 3 times actually) been burned by updates that wreck havoc to the machine... always relating to KDE updates. My last experience, their change from 3.6 to 3.8 of KDE (don't remember exactly but something like that) that left me at an empty screen with a mouse after a restart post update.
They intend for me to be looking at the forum for news on updates. Which might be good but when you have the most resent DVD with the system and update after an install you would expect no big trouble...
Now am trying to figure out how to do the update, but since I can only read the forum and not become a member because they block all the IPs from my region (damned SPAMMERS)... am screwed. And I like the distro...
Considering I have PCLinuxOS install on some friends machines and I tend to recommend it to people, but I have to reconsider my recommendations...
Maybe I should give the Xfce version a try...
I now also consider (X,K)Ubuntu somewhat a better recommendation, though I hate that they use "sudo"! But at least their systems won't break or end up to and empty screen with a cursor wondering what the hell happened... or so it seems.
Don't know... am looking for something usable... to recommend Linux to others, but lately that's becoming difficult lately. I can manage with some inconsistencies but my friend will drive me mad if I change their desktop to much. I guess the year of Linux is next year :)
Anyways... Am looking for a good Linux for my new A10 5800K APU system... it seems I'm in for a wild search!
55 • RE: 48 That Is Pretty Much What Bodhi Is (by OnoSendai on 2012-11-20 03:58:29 GMT from United States)
A web browser, file system and the ability to download individual apps or meta-packages, (one light, one heavy), from the home site. Fast, beautiful and small.
56 • CDs vs. DVDs (by Thomas Mueller on 2012-11-20 04:05:26 GMT from United States)
>> "I think any distro, especially those with relatively lightweight desktop environments, should be encouraged to continue having cd images to install from"
I agree too, but would like to see the option to write the image to bootable USB stick.
Method of writing to USB stick should be dd, and should work on any (quasi-)Unix OS and also from MS-Windows, rather than any features likely to be specific to Linux or involve specific software such as having syslinux already installed in a particular path, which could screw a user who might have /usr/local/bin/syslinux instead of /usr/bin/syslinux. There could also be something workable for MS-Windows in the absence of dd.
57 • @54 (by mz on 2012-11-20 06:31:49 GMT from United States)
I had to do a little extra to get from KDE 4.6 to version 4.8 myself, but after carefully following the forums it all worked for me on both my PCLOS machines. I'd say my only caveat to a recommendation of PCLOS for any & all users is the need for a few careful tweaks every once in a while. Sorry it failed you, but I've only really seen it totally die on account of very weird hardware.
58 • @48 Leo & light distros (by greg on 2012-11-20 06:49:22 GMT from Slovenia)
Chrunchbang will install basic desktop on first boot a script is launched asking you for every component if you need it or not. for exmaple do you want libre/open office Y/n and then you decide if it installs it or not.
59 • A couple things... (by DavidEF on 2012-11-20 12:24:07 GMT from United States)
@39 Fencemeister717,
Thanks, that puts Peppermint on the radar at least. If I get my friend's computer running, I will try out Peppermint.
@51 Ralph,
You realize what you're saying AGREES with #37 right? The whole conversation is about whether "light" distros should have a dvd image or not. Yes, the dvd images are going to be more bloated. One more reason to stick to cd images for "light" distros!
And, if I remember correctly, dvd drives started making the rounds in new computers before usb booting did. So your point was missed. Perhaps it is hard for you to fathom people still using "antiquated" PC's on a daily basis, but it happens. Not everyone has the means to acquire more modern equipment. Some just don't have a need to. One of the greatest benefits, IMHO, of using open source software is the ability to choose for ourselves whether our equipment gets upgraded or not.
60 • Re: #58 by Greg (by Leo on 2012-11-20 13:39:30 GMT from United States)
@Greg: oh, that's awesome. Mandrake used to do that, a bit differently, why don;t all distros do it? It should be the norm.Before installing to the disk, the live could offer a package selection, so you'd get to choose the main components. It would probably be best for #! to just distribute a light image, and let that script download things as needed. Anyways, thanks for the info!
61 • Re: #55 That Is Pretty Much What Bodhi Is (by Leo on 2012-11-20 13:41:37 GMT from United States)
@OnoSendai - yes, that's right, I really liked Bodhi. But it won't run on older hardware anymore because Ubuntu doesn't support browsers older than *586, go figure. Thanks!
62 • @60 Welcome to the new norm (by DavidEF on 2012-11-20 14:02:17 GMT from United States)
Leo,
Back in the day, Package selection used to be the norm. Somewhere along the way, someone decided it was too much to ask of new users to have to select what they wanted in an OS. So, the "Sane Defaults" idea was implemented.
A good middle ground would be to have an initial setup wizard with package selection, but make it like Ubuntu's partitioning guide. The first screen would give you the choice of "Normal" "Light" "Max" or "Something Else". If you choose one of the first three, you move on, if the last choice is selected, you get a package manager interface similar to Software Center, where you can fine-tune your installation choices. Now, who out there is a developer and will implement this? Any takers?
63 • xubuntu (by gokk on 2012-11-20 14:13:29 GMT from Norway)
The xfce in Xubuntu has some extra configuration in comparison to debian xfce, such the possibility to make the panel transparent. They seem to use about same amount of resources as gnome 2. More resource usage would for me be totally unacceptable. Being relatively bug free is an important aspect to a distro. Maybe Xubuntu 12.04.2 will have less bugs.
64 • @49 Agreed but... (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 14:24:40 GMT from Canada)
KDE for example is fine on a full-bore system, it comes with tons of candy and background this and that (which I promptly shut off), as for xfce stability, yep, agreed, very good, and one can also tone down xfce's little bit of candy too. You are right about the fine line, at what point do you sacrifice functionality? Where does it end? On a machine in the command line running a command line browser? At a certain point you have to break down and get new hardware (or better used hardware). I hunted down and bought a DDR (1st gen) stick the other day, the minimum size I could find/they had was 1GB, that should tell us something, if it still has and ISA slot, recycle it, lol. ;-)
65 • Midori web browser (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 14:29:34 GMT from Canada)
Compliments xfce nicely on a low resource machine, not a lot of bells and whistles but just enough, watch out for the extensions, some will make it crash. When flash makes your CPU gag at 99%, who needs extensions, lol.
66 • Slitaz???? (by Pmulax on 2012-11-20 14:51:30 GMT from Spain)
Talking about light distros someone mentioned Slitaz, which was looking good (except on wifi compatibility) but then has gone silent since April. Anyone knows why? I run Macpup off an old 2 Gb pendrive on the various PC's in my company so I can access AND edit my spreadsheets from ANY of them, and it works like a charm........it flies even on an old 1 Ghz Duron with 256 Mb ram. I know e17 seems strange at first but you get used to it quickly.
Another very nimble distro you should try is Austrumi, with a pimped up JWM (i think) which looks quite nice. Being based on Slackware is a big plus. The 250 Mb Live CD has about everthing, including LibreOffice. Try it, I assure you will be surprised.
67 • Although Xubuntu is quite good (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 15:50:32 GMT from Canada)
and I am talking 11.10 here, the newer kernel hates my 11 year old D-Link PCI slot network adapter, I am going to try wattOS R6 since it still has the 3.2 kernel. In these tough times, people will be hanging on to their aging hardware as long as possible, distros like wattOS have a place in this world for sure.
68 • Re: 62 by DavidEF (by Leo on 2012-11-20 15:52:09 GMT from United States)
Yes, I totally agree, and miss the Mandrake installer. Honestly, I only install once and upgrade, in each machine. So, it's not a huge issue.
I understand the concept of simple installers. And, heck, what you are saying is done by the standard windows package installer. They offer a few options (including a default installation), but they also allow you to customize to your content. If you have no idea, you choose "default".
I think, the mistake is not in assuming that the users fall into two big categories: extremely sophisticated computer nerds, or busy "normal" people looking for a two click install. You should allow for the latter, for sure, but it's oh so easy to also give some flexibility. If Microsoft could do it, we certainly can.
Cheers! Leo
69 • Install time package selection (by Jesse on 2012-11-20 15:52:17 GMT from Canada)
@62: Package selection at install time is something Debian and the DVD version of Fedora have done for ages. I suppose the reason they do and most other distributions don't is Fedora and Debian are both designed to be general purpose platforms. Many other distributions are aimed at more niche crowds and have less use for highly customized package management. I think you will find Slackware, PC-BSD and FreeBSD also also package customization at install time.
70 • Correction re D-Link and kernel (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 16:12:19 GMT from Canada)
it's the 3.2.x and up kernel that hates my 11 year old D-link PCI slot adapter, works with the 3.0.x kernel so will be trying wattOS R5.
71 • wattOS R5 is great EXCEPT (by John Dough on 2012-11-20 19:46:50 GMT from Canada)
I had to install lxinput to speed up the mouse, my God man, why would it not be in the default live or install? Nobody needs or want Carpal tunnel syndrome, lol. Sorry Xubuntu 11.10, watt has ya beat for shear performance, not as pretty as Xubuntu but that is the price you pay for more resources to run 'hog' flash in a web browser.
72 • #57 (by Baltazar on 2012-11-21 21:33:03 GMT from Puerto Rico)
Well, you see, I have liked the OS a lot for many years. But having this need to tweak a recently downloaded system just to be able to get up to date is not a good move for anyone that I have given the DVD with PCLinuxOS.
Mainly, they will install and do an update right away and be greeted on the reboot to an empty screen, that's just bad. I can deal with it but it brakes the simple desktop usability that many look for. Granted there are distros for that kind of user... though PCLOS was once a great candidate for newbies, hence my previous recommendations...
In time things should stabilize and a proper updated system image will be released but right now not that many new users will go to a forum just to update their newly install PCLOS...
Besides there needs to be a way to avoid this, eider by keeping certain packages from updating, thus managing users to actually go in to the forum or page to realize that a special care needs to be taken to update them, or some update manager messages that warns of said process to take... or even some scrip that allows the user to avoid possible horrors of updating their system...
I am aware that this is not the norm, for things to brake or leave the user in a useless state... noobs will get lost fast. And, a command line interface with no sensibility for those of us with bad spelling or poor memory for badly abbreviations of commands or apps to fix problems on the probably only machine at hand can be helpful...
I wish that someday the command line gets a little friendlier! I mean, look at how Google uses correction or suggestions for searches... if the command line ever gets that kind of interactivity it will help users be less scared of it and will be able learn commands easier... and no the man help is not good enough by itself...
But am running mad here... long read already...
Am frustrated with AMD's driver support... I am not to happy of my A10 now... will need to get Winblows 7 to be able to use the comp fully, but I knew it was not gona be simple... Lets see if Mint helps me by... damn I hate "sudo"... Why are they emulating Apple damn it... way to kill safety... at least for me...
Anyway.... happy turkey holocaust day!!!
:|
73 • (for John Dough) Hardware may drive kernel selection (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2012-11-22 01:59:06 GMT from United States)
Different Linux kernels include different hardware drivers; drivers can be added during boot, other boot parameters can tune your base further. Regardless of OS. How the system manages them after boot is another matter, of course. Recent Linux kernel development seems to be somewhat recovered from a near-moratorium on hardware accommodation in the early 2000's. (Something to do with separating some (proprietary?) drivers from the core. ) Is there any easily-used database of kernel vs hardware?
74 • @73 re:kernel selection (by John Dough on 2012-11-22 13:38:18 GMT from Canada)
I hear what you are saying and assumed the driver thing (which you confirmed, thank you) but at the end of the day, each kernel gets more and more bloated, like its Microsoft and Apple counterparts. That being said Xubuntu and wattOS, which I have been toying with on this experimental old junker, are supposed to be for ageing hardware, so inclusion of ageing drivers should be a consideration. Drivers, bloated kernel or not, at the end of the day, it's flash, you update flash to the newer version and it bogs the machine down, to the point of crashing flash and/or the browser. So in the end, wattOS wins for shear CPU cycle/video card load conservation, default install with only Midori updated. Btw, what ever happened to automatic hardware detection and appropriate driver initializing? Or at least a daemon to ask the user to install a driver(s) via download, etc, it's there for nVidia.
75 • RE:66 Austrumi (by greg on 2012-11-22 20:38:42 GMT from United States)
I am a fan of Austrumi, also. I just wish I could figure out how to get it to boot, after a hard drive install.
76 • @74 old hardware (by greg on 2012-11-23 07:15:43 GMT from Slovenia)
Xubuntu is not really ment for old hardware. it's ment for those that would liek different, lighter, XFCE desktop. as a result it does run on more old hardware than Ubuntu. for older hardware you have distributions such as Slitaz, DSL, PuppyLinux etc. some support for certain old hardware is getting constantly dropped out.nothing prevents people from picking up old kernel and continue to maintain it.
77 • Austrumi - how to wifi? (by gnomic on 2012-11-23 08:01:08 GMT from New Zealand)
Periodically I try out the latest version of Austrumi and am impressed by the look and the way they get LibreOffice into quite a small live CD. And how often does one see fvwm as window manager these days :-) Shades of 1997 or so. However I then try to connect via wifi with the gui utility provided. It finds the access point and wants the password. Then it goes away and does nothing as far I can tell, except eventually ask for the password again. This utility appears to be home-grown. On one occasion I even tried to join the forum so as to enquire about this but the captcha was so heavily obfuscated I had idea what it might be even after several tries. Anyone ever got Autrumi to do wifi with WPA, short of getting right under the hood with wpa_supplicant?
78 • Old hardware, @66 SliTAZ, @75 Austrumi (by Fossilizing Dinosaur on 2012-11-23 08:01:58 GMT from United States)
SliTAZ is very much alive, just not doing frequent minor updates.
There are many Puppies. And partial documentation here and there.
One (unofficial) Austrumi Linux English-speaking forum is at http://austrumi.punbb-hosting.com/index.php
There are many definitions of old hardware, aren't there?
79 • @78 (by brazilian guy on 2012-11-24 04:30:37 GMT from Brazil)
There are not many definitions of old hardware, only one older than others, you just have to specify how old the equipment is! it is not a definition, it is only when you can say that a machine is old, it is a perspective....
80 • RE@75,77,78 (by Pmulax on 2012-11-24 11:45:04 GMT from Spain)
RE@75 Austrumi
I confess I have never installed it on a HD, always pendrives. The program included in the CD does it's job though it doesn't say it's finished...after 20 mins I guessed it had either finished or failed, so I stopped it and tested: everything was fine.
RE@77 Austrumi Gnomic, I have the same situation: initial hopes seeing it sees the wifi networks and asks for the password...and then nothing. Something is amiss in the wifi config. Still, I always have it on a tiny microSD on my keyring, in case my other MacPup fails to boot. Plus Austrumi includes various translations, including spanish.
RE@78 Fossilizing Dinosaur I hadn't looked into the forums, thanks. I thought that, judging the rate of releases they had before 4.0, 7 months of inactivity was a bad indication, but I was wrong, fortunately. Thanks for the link to the Austrumi english forum. Cheers!
By the way, I call "old hardware" any piece I can recover, be given or discover in a bin....I've set up like half a dozen PC's with spare parts, most running Xubuntu or Lubuntu (easier config for Window users). Anything that can surf the Wikipedia is usefull.
81 • RE:Austrumi on HDD (by greg on 2012-11-24 14:07:09 GMT from United States)
After a little research, I tried installing Austrumi on the 1st partition, of my hard drive. I am now using it to post this.
82 • re: old hardware (by John Dough on 2012-11-24 16:56:22 GMT from Canada)
Anything more than 3 years old is considered aging, depends on the initial cash outlay, the more you spend, the better the specs and quality, the longer it lasts. To me, old hardware struggles to run a full-bore distro (sure, you can boot to the desktop, but that is where it ends, try running something huge, lol), bloatware in and out of Linux is a fact of life these days. My lean install of wattOS R5 on this old experimental junker is proof of that, install anything KDE related (don't get me wrong, love KDE, I run full-bore Kubuntu on my main machine) and it drags a ton of KDE libs, etc, with it, bogging down and old machine (K3B requires nepomuk?! How so?!). I didn't even install the proprietary nVidia driver, this thing works BETTER with nouveau, I kid you not. :-D
83 • Debian (by WM on 2012-11-24 21:40:44 GMT from Canada)
I have tried many but always come back to Debian, it just works, may not have the newest but it works!
84 • SalentOS (by SallyK on 2012-11-25 12:38:59 GMT from United Kingdom)
Thank you very much for the news of this - I really like Adeskbar as a panel, and I've been missing it since Madbox switched to standard LXDE.
It's a nice lightish weight distro, with the flexibility given by being based on Ubuntu.
85 • Salix (by Nick on 2012-11-25 13:43:38 GMT from Greece)
Not related to DWW but how is it possible that Salix is i686 when Slackware itself is i486?
Number of Comments: 85
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• Issue 1067 (2024-04-22): LocalSend for transferring files, detecting supported CPU architecure levels, new visual design for APT, Fedora and openSUSE working on reproducible builds, LXQt released, AlmaLinux re-adds hardware support |
• Issue 1066 (2024-04-15): Fun projects to do with the Raspberry Pi and PinePhone, installing new software on fixed-release distributions, improving GNOME Terminal performance, Mint testing new repository mirrors, Gentoo becomes a Software In the Public Interest project |
• Issue 1065 (2024-04-08): Dr.Parted Live 24.03, answering questions about the xz exploit, Linux Mint to ship HWE kernel, AlmaLinux patches flaw ahead of upstream Red Hat, Calculate changes release model |
• Issue 1064 (2024-04-01): NixOS 23.11, the status of Hurd, liblzma compromised upstream, FreeBSD Foundation focuses on improving wireless networking, Ubuntu Pro offers 12 years of support |
• Issue 1063 (2024-03-25): Redcore Linux 2401, how slowly can a rolling release update, Debian starts new Project Leader election, Red Hat creating new NVIDIA driver, Snap store hit with more malware |
• Issue 1062 (2024-03-18): KDE neon 20240304, changing file permissions, Canonical turns 20, Pop!_OS creates new software centre, openSUSE packages Plasma 6 |
• Issue 1061 (2024-03-11): Using a PinePhone as a workstation, restarting background services on a schedule, NixBSD ports Nix to FreeBSD, Fedora packaging COSMIC, postmarketOS to adopt systemd, Linux Mint replacing HexChat |
• Issue 1060 (2024-03-04): AV Linux MX-23.1, bootstrapping a network connection, key OpenBSD features, Qubes certifies new hardware, LXQt and Plasma migrate to Qt 6 |
• Issue 1059 (2024-02-26): Warp Terminal, navigating manual pages, malware found in the Snap store, Red Hat considering CPU requirement update, UBports organizes ongoing work |
• Issue 1058 (2024-02-19): Drauger OS 7.6, how much disk space to allocate, System76 prepares to launch COSMIC desktop, UBports changes its version scheme, TrueNAS to offer faster deduplication |
• Issue 1057 (2024-02-12): Adelie Linux 1.0 Beta, rolling release vs fixed for a smoother experience, Debian working on 2038 bug, elementary OS to split applications from base system updates, Fedora announces Atomic Desktops |
• Issue 1056 (2024-02-05): wattOS R13, the various write speeds of ISO writing tools, DSL returns, Mint faces Wayland challenges, HardenedBSD blocks foreign USB devices, Gentoo publishes new repository, Linux distros patch glibc flaw |
• Full list of all issues |
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Random Distribution | 
HandyLinux
HandyLinux was a French distribution designed for novice Linux users. It was based on the latest stable version of Debian GNU/Linux and it uses the Xfce desktop environment. The main feature of the distribution was a custom start menu with applications and Internet bookmarks grouped in tabs. HandyLinux integrates the latest versions of the Chromium web browser, LibreOffice office suite, Skype conferencing and messaging client, VLC video player and other popular applications with the stable Debian base.
Status: Discontinued
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TUXEDO |

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Star Labs |

Star Labs - Laptops built for Linux.
View our range including the highly anticipated StarFighter. Available with coreboot open-source firmware and a choice of Ubuntu, elementary, Manjaro and more. Visit Star Labs for information, to buy and get support.
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