 DistroWatch Weekly |
| DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 787, 29 October 2018 |
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Welcome to this year's 44th issue of DistroWatch Weekly!
Earlier this month we saw the usual scheduled October release of Ubuntu and its many community editions. One of the notable changes in the new 18.10 versions came from Lubuntu as the project changed its desktop environment from the GTK+-based LXDE to Qt-based LXQt. This adjustment brings with it a number of related changes in default applications and resource usage and we explore these differences in our Feature Story. Lubuntu's change in desktops is also the topic of our Opinion Poll and we would like to know whether you are in favour of the shift from LXDE to LXQt. In our News section we discuss efforts to compile a list of compatible hardware which works with the Haiku operating system, and cover a story on the Solus distribution's missing founder. Plus we discuss IBM purchasing Red Hat, Pine64 planning a phone running Plasma, and the Mir display software and what its status is now that it has reached its 1.0 milestone. In our Questions and Answers section we talk about how to limit application usage to specific users. We are also pleased to share the releases of the past week and list the torrents we are seeding. We wish you all a wonderful week and happy reading!
Content:
- Review: Lubuntu 18.10 - now with LXQt
- News: Haiku hardware compatibility list, Solus founder out of contact, a potential new GNU/Linux phone, explaining Mir 1.0, IBM buying Red Hat
- Questions and answers: Limit application access to specific users
- Released last week: Tails 3.10.1, OpenIndiana 2018.10, Primtux 4
- Torrent corner: Archman, Bluestar, Clonezilla, Greenie, MorpheusArch, KDE neon, Nitrux, OpenIndiana, Primtux, Robolinux, Tails
- Upcoming releases: Fedora 29, FreeBSD 12.0-BETA3
- Opinion poll: Lubuntu's switch to LXQt
- New distributions: Open Secure-K OS
- Reader comments
Listen to the Podcast edition of this week's DistroWatch Weekly in OGG (21MB) and MP3 (15MB) formats.
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| Feature Story (by Jesse Smith) |
Lubuntu 18.10 - now with LXQt
On October 18th the Ubuntu distribution and related community projects released new versions. These new releases are short term releases, receiving just nine months of support. For the most part, I did not find many big, new features listed in the announcements, but one exception was the changing of Lubuntu's desktop environment:
Thanks to all the hard work from our contributors, Lubuntu 18.10 has been released. This is the first Lubuntu release with LXQt as the main desktop environment. The Lubuntu project, in 18.10 and successive releases, will no longer support the LXDE desktop environment or tools in the Ubuntu archive and will instead focus on the LXQt desktop environment.
The project has also reported that it plans to focus on being relatively light and modern, but will no longer focus on supporting older hardware.
A shift in desktop environments, even related ones like LXDE and LXQt, struck me as interesting and I was curious to see what practical effect, if any, this would have on Lubuntu's users. With that in mind, I would like to share some information on Lubuntu's final release featuring LXDE (version 18.04) and then talk about Lubuntu 18.10 with the LXQt desktop.
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Lubuntu 18.04 with LXDE
Let's quickly talk about some of the characteristics of Lubuntu 18.04 with the LXDE desktop. Lubuntu 18.04 was provided as a 1GB ISO file. The distribution was installed with the Ubiquity installer and a fresh copy of the operating system used up 3.6GB of disk space. The LXDE desktop on Lubuntu used about 180MB of RAM and was wonderfully light and responsive in my test environments.
Lubuntu 18.04 featured a theme that used a lot of light grey backgrounds and black text. Most applications were members of the GTK+ family of programs. Software in the default install included Firefox, Pidgin, Transmission, AbiWord, Gnumeric, MPV and Audacious. Settings were managed through modules found in the application menu, and I do not recall there being a central settings panel.
Lubuntu 18.04 -- Running LXDE
(full image size: 387kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
For software management, Lubuntu 18.04 used GNOME Software to handle desktop applications. People who wanted to deal with lower level packages could run the Synaptic package manager. there was a third tool to manage package updates.
On the whole, I would say that Lubuntu 18.04 was a solid, long-term support release. There were not a lot of standout features, and I questioned the practicality of using AbiWord and Gnumeric over the more popular LibreOffice suite, but on the whole I thought the distribution's final version with LXDE was a good, lightweight distribution.
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Lubuntu 18.10 with LXQt
The latest release if Lubuntu is provided as a 1.6GB download in both 32-bit and 64-bit builds. Booting from the live media loads the LXQt 0.13.0 desktop. The desktop's panel is still placed at the bottom of the display. The application menu is located in the bottom-left corner of the screen and the system tray is positioned in the bottom-right corner. The theme has been adjusted slightly, generally using white text on a black background for greater contrast. This darker look works pretty well except for a few corner cases such as the volume control in the system tray. It is presented as a dark grey icon on a grey background and is difficult to see.
The new version of Lubuntu uses the Calamares system installer, which replaces Ubiquity. This strikes me as an odd choice as most of the Calamares screens look the same as Ubiquity's and the steps are very similar. I think Calamares might offer a little more flexibility with disk partitioning, but otherwise the two installers are very similar, so I am curious about the change. The installer walks us through setting our time zone, selecting our keyboard's layout, setting up disk partitions and creating a user account. It then places its files on our hard drive and we can restart the computer to try out our new copy of Lubuntu.
Lubuntu 18.10 -- Running Firefox and monitoring processes
(full image size: 488kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Lubuntu boots to a colourful, graphical login screen where we can sign into either the LXQt desktop or the Openbox window manager. The LXQt desktop is pleasantly responsive and I like the new theme and colourful icons. The desktop seems set up to avoid distracting us; there are very few notifications and there were no indication of new software updates during my trial.
Hardware
I experimented with Lubuntu 18.10 in a virtual machine and on a desktop computer. When running on the desktop computer, Lubuntu performed well. All my hardware was detected, the desktop was always responsive and Lubuntu was stable throughout my trial.
When running in VirtualBox, Lubuntu started off limiting my desktop resolution to 800x640 pixels. This could be adjusted in the display configuration module without requiring that I install any extra modules. After I sorted out my display's resolution, Lubuntu performed well in the virtual machine.
Lubuntu 18.10 required 280MB of memory when signed into LXQt, 55% more than the distribution needed to run LXDE. The new version of Lubuntu consumed 4.6GB of disk space with a fresh install, a full gigabyte more than the previous version.
Applications
Lubuntu 18.10 ships with software that is mostly part of the Qt family of applications. The application menu features the Firefox web browser, Qtransmission for downloading torrents, the Quassel IRC client and LibreOffice. The qpdfview PDF viewer is present along with the LXImage image viewer, and the FeatherPad text editor. We also find the K3b disc burning software, a calculator, archive manager and the oddly complicated QtPass password manager. Lubuntu ships with the qps process monitor and the PCmanFM-Qt file manager. Digging further we find the VLC multimedia player (I found no specific, dedicated music player). Like the previous version of Lubuntu, the distribution uses NetworkManager to set up network connections and features the systemd init software. Lubuntu 18.10 ships with version 4.18.0 of the Linux kernel.
Lubuntu 18.10 -- Browsing applications in the file manager
(full image size: 249kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
I found the included programs generally worked well, were stable and did not offer any surprises. The exception was trying to play videos in VLC. Sometimes the player would crash trying to start a video, though other videos and music files played successfully.
Settings
We can access Lubuntu's settings through the application menu or through a settings panel. The panel is somewhat buried (it's three levels deep in the application menu), but it presents us with a fairly easy and familiar way to adjust the desktop. Most of the configuration modules work as we might expect, making it pretty straight forward to change the wallpaper, keyboard short-cuts and and notifications. There is also a handy tool for setting up printers.
Lubuntu 18.10 -- The settings panel
(full image size: 414kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
There were two tools which stood out as being less user friendly. The Alternative Applications module shows application types and lists which application is being used. It seems like an overly complex way to explore this information and redundant since the settings panel also has a complex File Associations module. I call it complex as the File Associations module doesn't assign a group of file types (such as text or videos) to an application, instead it assigns individual file extensions to programs. This is very flexible, but may require changing dozens of entries to get all text or media files to open in the same program.
The user account manager was mostly a positive experience for me and I like how simple it is to use. However, the user manager shows two system accounts (systemd-coredump and nobody) mixed in with regular user accounts. I suspect this may confuse people and possibly result in these system accounts getting removed.
Software management
Lubuntu 18.10 ships with two software managers. The first is Discover, an application manager which shows links for available applications, installed items and settings down the left side of the window. On the right we see programs (or settings) in the selected section. When exploring available programs we can see a program's name and icon listed on the right side of the window and we can click an entry to see more information and a screenshot.
I ran into a few problems with Discover. While the software manager worked fairly smoothly on my desktop computer, it was terribly slow when running in a virtual machine. Scrolling through a list of applications could take over ten seconds to refresh the display and Discover would appear to lock-up when switching to a new screen or loading application information. At one point I installed the GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP) and later found there were two entries for GIMP in the Installed section. The two GIMP packages had different description pages. At first I thought one might be a portable package, but Flatpak was not enabled on my system and a check showed no Snap packages had been installed. The low level dpkg package manager showed only one copy of GIMP was installed, so I have no explanation for where the second copy of GIMP came from in Discover's listing.
Lubuntu 18.10 -- Multiple GIMP entries in Discover
(full image size: 133kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
The second software manager is the Muon package manager. Muon has a similar layout with two panes (categories on the left, programs on the right), but uses fewer visual elements and less space for entries. Muon focuses on low level packages and does not display as much information; its listings are more compact. Muon feels similar to Synaptic in its abilities and style, but with an interface that feels a bit more colourful and modern.
Both software managers offer to update packages, if new versions are available.
Lubuntu 18.10 -- The Muon package manager
(full image size: 465kB, resolution: 1280x1024 pixels)
Conclusions
I have mixed feelings about this release of Lubuntu. On the one hand most of the features worked well. The distribution was easy to install, I liked the theme, and the operating system is pretty easy to use. There were a few aspects I didn't like, usually programs or settings modules I felt were overly complex or confusing compared to their counterparts on other distributions. For the most part though, Lubuntu does a nice job of being a capable, relatively lightweight distribution.
Lubuntu 18.10 does not exist in a vacuum and I am mostly interested in how the new version compares to Lubuntu 18.04 - what is better and what is worse? In my opinion, the new, higher contrast theme is nicer to look at. I enjoyed the look of LXQt more than the older LXDE. Performance was in the same range on my machines, though I think 18.04 booted a little faster.
Some of the different programs I liked and some I did not. I think replacing AbiWord and Gnumeric with LibreOffice is a practical move. The latter might be heavier, but I think more people will be familiar with it and enjoy the greater range of features. On the other hand, swapping out GNOME Software for Discover feels like a step backwards. The former is faster, has a nicer interface (in my opinion) and I did not run into duplicate entries in the GNOME Software tool. Discover feels like a poorer tool, introduced for toolkit purity rather than capability.
For the most part I felt the switch from GTK+ to Qt applications went smoothly. We end up with most of the same capabilities and sometimes, as with Transmission, the same underlying software exists in the background.
One concern I had was with the increase in resource requirements in Lubuntu 18.10. Whether this is a big deal or not will depend a lot on how you look at the numbers. Lubuntu 18.10 has an ISO that is 60% larger than the one for 18.04. This seems like a big increase, but unless the user is on a dial-up Internet connection the download is not going to make a big difference and it is something we only need to do once.
Once installed, Lubuntu 18.10 uses up a full gigabyte more disk space. That is a big jump, proportionately, but it is unlikely to negatively affect anyone with a computer made in the past 15 years. So it looks like a step in the wrong direction, but probably not a practical issue.
I feel the same way about memory consumption. The new version is 55% heavier than the previous release in RAM. This is not ideal, but memory usage was still only 280MB. So, relatively speaking, Lubuntu's memory usage ballooned remarkably from one release to the next.However, Lubuntu's expanded resource consumption still makes it lighter than most other desktop Linux distributions, and the difference is roughly the equivalent of opening a few extra browser tabs. In short, when it comes to resources, Lubuntu is using more than before, but still so little that no computer made in the past decade or more will be impacted by the difference.
On the whole, I think the transition from LXDE to LXQt has gone smoothly. There are a few choices I didn't like, and a few I did, but mostly the changes were minor. I think most people will be able to make the leap between the two desktops fairly easily. I think a few settings modules still need polish and I'd like to see Discover replaced with just about any other modern software manager, but otherwise this felt like a graceful (and mostly positive) move from 18.04 to 18.10 and from LXDE to LXQt.
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Hardware used in this review
My physical test equipment for this review was a desktop HP Pavilon p6 Series with the following specifications:
- Processor: Dual-core 2.8GHz AMD A4-3420 APU
- Storage: 500GB Hitachi hard drive
- Memory: 6GB of RAM
- Networking: Realtek RTL8111 wired network card
- Display: AMD Radeon HD 6410D video card
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Visitor supplied rating
Lubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 7.7/10 from 60 review(s).
Have you used Lubuntu? You can leave your own review of the project on our ratings page.
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| Miscellaneous News (by Jesse Smith) |
Haiku hardware compatibility list, Solus founder out of contact, a potential new GNU/Linux phone, explaining Mir 1.0, IBM buying Red Hat
The Haiku operating system is a lightweight, highly responsive desktop operating system and the spiritual successor to BeOS from the 1990s. The Haiku project recently released its first beta and, while the Haiku developers have made great progress, some users still struggle with hardware compatibility. Some users are assembling a list of compatible computers and hardware that will run Haiku and posting their findings on the project's forum. "Up to now, I've been storing the new responses to a simple Google page called 'Hardware List for Haiku 10' which I don't think anyone can effectively see or use that well, and if people are taking the time to test and contribute, it'd be nice if they can see their efforts. So, as of today, I'd actually like to also put that info here and make this a Wiki page so that anyone curious what computer models are compatible with Haiku can freely take a look..." The current list can be found in this forum thread. The thread has been added to our hardware compatibility page to make it easier for our readers to find in the future.
* * * * *
A little over a year after the founder of Solus, Ikey Doherty, announced that he was leaving his job to work on Solus full-time using funds donated to the project, the Solus core team have reported they are no longer in contact with him. "Ikey reached out to us on September 7th and informing us that he was still not feeling well, but that he had paid the server up for another 30 days so that we wouldn't need to rush to finish the migration... To date, that was the last communication we or anyone in contact with us have received from Ikey."
The remaining Solus developers are working to regain control of the Solus infrastructure and accounts. They report they have been unable to get access to the Solus Patreon account and advise people funding the project to cease their Patreon donations for the time being. "Unfortunately, with Patreon's refusal to assist us, our only option is to kindly request that you immediately cease your donations to it. My personal advice would be to additionally contact Patreon for refunds and express your frustration to them for their unwillingness to assist us. We can only hope that they decide to grant us access to the funds or account. I deeply apologize that we did not take the necessary measures earlier to ensure this account was accessible to the entire team. Moving forward, we will not be accepting any monetary donations until we have measures in place to ensure it can be accessed by the entire team at any point in time." Further details can be found in the Solus blog post. The Void team faced a similar issue earlier this year.
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Pine64 is a company which makes and sells an ARM-based laptop called the Pinebook. It's FOSS has published an article reporting that the company is looking at developing a smart phone running GNU/Linux software and the Plasma user interface. "I contacted Pine64 team and TL Lim, founder of Pine64, confirmed the plans for a Linux-based smartphone and tablet. These devices are called PinePhone and PineTab. Lim revealed some information about PinePhone development. The first PinePhone developer kit will be given to selected developers for free on November 1. This is a combo kit of PINE A64 baseboard + SOPine module + 7″ Touch Screen Display + Camera + Wifi/BT + Playbox enclosure + Lithium-Ion battery case + LTE cat 4 USB dongle. This combo kit will allow developers to jump start PinePhone development. The Pine A64 platform already has a mainline Linux OS build thanks to the Pine64 community and support [from] KDE neon."
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Earlier this year the Mir team published version 1.0 of their display software. Following the announcement the developers realized Mir is still an often-misunderstood piece of technology. A post on the Ubuntu Community boards provides an overview of X11, Wayland, and Mir and how they relate to each other. "We've recently (OK, recently-ish) released Mir 1.0 with usable Wayland support. Yay! That brought a bunch of publicity, including on LWN. Some of the comments there and elsewhere betray a misunderstanding about what Wayland is (and is not), and this still occasionally comes up in #wayland, so I'll dust off an old blog post, polish up the rusty bits, and see if I can make this clearer for people again!"
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The weekend brought some significant news from Red Hat, the world's largest commercial Linux company. Red Hat is being purchased by IBM: "Today, one of the largest enterprise players on the planet has agreed to take open source and Red Hat even further. By joining IBM, Red Hat can deliver even more open source innovation to customers at a larger scale. Importantly, IBM has been a long time and great partner of ours, dating back to when they made a significant early investment in Linux and then became one of the first hardware platform partners to package and bring Red Hat Enterprise Linux to their customers."
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These and other news stories can be found on our Headlines page.
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| Questions and Answers (by Jesse Smith) |
Limit application access to specific users
Blocking-access-for-some asks: Is there a way to password protect applications so that each user needs to put in a password to run, for example, Chrome?
DistroWatch answers: Yes, technically it is possible to put blocks in place which would require the user to put in a password in order to run an application. There are tools such as sudo and doas which are designed to grant temporary permission to run a program if the user can input the right password. However, for this to work you would need to first block users from running the program, then configure special entries in the sudo or doas configuration file for them. You may need to set up new accounts to handle application-specific information. It turns into a bit of a configuration mess.
I suspect what you are trying to do is set up a shared computer so that only certain users can run certain programs. For example, on a shared family computer you might want just the parents/guardians to be able to run a web browser while the children are limited to using other programs.
If this is the case there is a relatively easy way to limit access to certain programs to a group of people. Then only users in that group will be able to run the program and everyone else will be blocked. The user needs their password to sign in, but once they are logged in, they will automatically have access to run certain applications, or be denied from running other applications.
To accomplish this we need to do three things:
- Create a new user group.
- Add privileged users to the new group.
- Change the permissions of the program to be exclusive to the new group.
On most distribution we can create a new group, which I will call parents, by using the addgroup command:
sudo addgroup parents
Next we add each person we want to be able to run the program into the parents group. In this case, I'm going to assume their names are Bob and Alice. This takes multiple commands, one for each user.
sudo adduser alice parents
sudo adduser bob parents
Now we have Alice and Bob in the parents group. Anyone else on the system is not considered a parent. Our next step is to change the permissions of the program so that only the administrator and members of the parents group can run it. In the following example, I'm going to use the Chrome browser as the target program.
sudo chown root:parents /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
sudo chmod 750 /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable
The first line changes ownership of the program so that it is owned by the administrator (root), and it is associated with the parents group. The second line allows root to do anything with the program (such as run, upgrade or remove it). The parents are allowed to read the program into memory and run it. Anyone else gets no access and cannot run or change the application.
The next time Alice and Bob sign into their accounts they will be able to run Chrome, but no one else will. You can do this with as many programs as you like, once the special group (parents in this case) has been created.
A word of warning with this method: your package manager may change the ownership of files the next time an upgrade for the application becomes available. If this happens you will need to re-run the last two commands in the above tutorial to get the proper permissions back.
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Additional answers can be found in our Questions and Answers archive.
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| Released Last Week |
OpenIndiana 2018.10
Alexander Pyhalov has announced the release of OpenIndiana 2018.10, a new snapshot of the project's open-source operating system built from the ashes of Oracle's defunct OpenSolaris. This version updates the MATE desktop and most other applications to newer versions and provides various improvements to the Illumos kernel: "We have released a new OpenIndiana 'Hipster' snapshot 2018.10. The noticeable changes: MATE desktop was updated to 1.20; Python 3.5 was added, a lot of Python modules are now delivered for 3.5 Python version in addition to 2.7 and 3.4; Image Packaging System (IPS) has received a lot of updates from OmniOS CE IPS and Solaris IPS; KVM zone brand now allows you to manage your KVM VMs as Illumos zones; several new compilers were added, including GCC 8 (with patches necessary to build Illumos) and Rust 1.29; many components were migrated to 64-bit only, most newly-added software defaults to 64-bit; due to recent security fixes compatibilty with some Solaris applications is broken, the most important one is VirtualBox." See the release announcement and the detailed release notes for further information.
OpenIndiana 2018.10 -- Running the MATE desktop
(full image size: 1.6MB, resolution:1920x1080 pixels)
Tails 3.10.1
A new version of Tails has been released. Tails is a Debian-based live distribution whose goal is to help its users to browse the Internet anonymously and to circumvent censorship. This version is a standard security and bug-fix update: "Tails 3.10.1 is out. This release fixes many security vulnerabilities. You should upgrade as soon as possible. Upgrades and changes: hide the PIM option when unlocking VeraCrypt volumes because PIM won't be supported until Tails 4.0; rename the buttons in the confirmation dialog of Tails Installer to Install (or Upgrade) and Cancel to be less confusing; update Linux to 4.8, Tor Browser to 8.0.3, Thunderbird to 60.2.1. Fixed problems: prevent Tor Browser from leaking the language of the session; prevent Additional Software from asking to persist packages which are already configured as additional software; prevent Tails Installer from crashing when issuing an error message with international characters (non-ASCII); fix the VeraCrypt support for multiple encryption (cascades of ciphers); harden the configuration of sudo to prevent privilege escalation." Further information and screen shots can be found in the project's release announcement.
Primtux 4
PrimTux is a Debian-based distribution developed by a small team of school teachers and computer enthusiasts in the educational environment. The distribution's latest release is PrimTux 4 which unifies the look of the distribution's desktop environments across editions and makes it easier to customize the HandyMenu. The project's release announcement (in French) also reports updates to the parental controls. A translation of the announcement reads: "e2guardian replaces DansGuardian, privoxy replaces tinyproxy. The same browser is used for all because the filtering is done at the user level in transparent mode, the HTTPS traffic is filtered, time slots of use can be applied. In this case, a multicore processor is recommended. DansGuardian and tinyproxy are used, the HTTPS is filtered by the proxy. Desktop uniformity: all versions of PrimTux have the same desktops."
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Development, unannounced and minor bug-fix releases
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| Torrent Corner |
Weekly Torrents
The table below provides a list of torrents DistroWatch is currently seeding. If you do not have a bittorrent client capable of handling the linked files, we suggest installing either the Transmission or KTorrent bittorrent clients.
Archives of our previously seeded torrents may be found in our Torrent Archive. We also maintain a Torrents RSS feed for people who wish to have open source torrents delivered to them. To share your own open source torrents of Linux and BSD projects, please visit our Upload Torrents page.
Torrent Corner statistics:
- Total torrents seeded: 1,089
- Total data uploaded: 21.7TB
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| Upcoming Releases and Announcements |
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Summary of expected upcoming releases
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| Opinion Poll |
Lubuntu's switch to LXQt
In this week's review of Lubuntu we talked about the distribution switching out their LXDE desktop for LXQt. The change not only affects some of the tools being shipped with the distribution, but also the amount of resources Lubuntu requires.
We would like to hear what our readers think about this change. Is it a good move for Lubuntu, or do you prefer the old LXDE desktop and associated applications?
You can see the results of our previous poll on running ARM-powered computers in last week's edition. All previous poll results can be found in our poll archives.
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Lubuntu switching to LXQt
| I prefer the switch to LXQt: | 470 (34%) |
| I preferred the LXDE desktop: | 396 (29%) |
| I have no preference: | 507 (37%) |
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| DistroWatch.com News |
Distributions added to waiting list
- Open Secure-K OS. Open Secure-K OS is a live, Debian-based operating system. It is designed to be run from a USB thumb drive and runs the GNOME desktop.
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DistroWatch database summary
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This concludes this week's issue of DistroWatch Weekly. The next instalment will be published on Monday, 5 November 2018. Past articles and reviews can be found through our Article Search page. To contact the authors please send e-mail to:
- Jesse Smith (feedback, questions and suggestions: distribution reviews/submissions, questions and answers, tips and tricks)
- Ladislav Bodnar (feedback, questions, donations, comments)
- Bruce Patterson (podcast)
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| Reader Comments • Jump to last comment |
1 • LXQt vs LXDE as Lubuntu default (by tim on 2018-10-29 00:14:39 GMT from United States)
We can still obtain LXDE packages from outside the official repo, right? If so, even though I personally would still choose LXDE, I'm pleased to see LXQt receiving support and attention.
2 • Ikey Doherty MIA (by Pikolo on 2018-10-29 01:16:51 GMT from United Kingdom)
Damn, I hope he's ok. It is very suspicious for someone to disappear for a whole month without a sign of life...
This is also annoying on a personal level, as Solus 3.9999 successfully booted on my machine, and the Solus team released a KDE Plasma spin for beta testing. I was hoping to switch to Solus Plasma, and now this happens...
3 • IBM purchasing Red Hat (by Dan on 2018-10-29 01:29:35 GMT from United States)
IBM is buying Red Hat. They will employ/control the guys responsible for RHEL, Centos, Gnome, systemd, and other very important linux programs. The future is bleak.
4 • Lubuntu (by denflen on 2018-10-29 01:34:51 GMT from United States)
I have been a faithful user of Lubuntu for longer than I can remember. I love that it has Ubuntu as the parent. I have tried Kubuntu and Xubuntu also. But it was Lubuntu that met my computing requirements of lightweight and no bells and whistles. It just got the job done! The new version, 18.10 feels to me like unnecessary change. It got bloated just to get bloated. Why fix what aint broke? And speaking of Openbox, which I actually prefer as Lubuntu's session, it is now not able to run. For some reason when I choose Openbox as my session on login, it just freezes the screen. I am going to miss Lubuntu when Lubuntu 18.04 loses its support...
5 • LXQt for the win (by albinard on 2018-10-29 01:36:12 GMT from United States)
The change from Abiword to LibreOffice is reason enough to celebrate the new Lubuntu, since it now includes a real office application rather than an outdated halfway solution compatible with nothing else on the planet. Further, the speed with which LXQt handles second-page openings of LibreOffice Writer (which matters if you do much writing) is much faster than it is on most of the other *buntus.
Lubuntu has never had the configuration options of some others (notably Xubuntu), but the LibO speed is enough to get me to run at least one machine on the new Lubuntu. Major cheers and thanks for the huge amount of work Simon Quigley and his crew have put in on this!
6 • Lubuntu 18.10 and LibreOffice (by Carlos Felipe Araujo on 2018-10-29 01:40:27 GMT from Brazil)
"I think replacing AbiWord and Gnumeric with LibreOffice is a practical move." Why not a shortcut to install it? The iso file is so big..and gtk.. In theory, this system should be light
7 • Lubuntu's switch to LXQt, doesnt make sense in a potential users perspective (by INeverLikedUbuntuBUT on 2018-10-29 02:08:25 GMT from Philippines)
Lubuntu, has lost the identity of being one of the "lightweight" distro.
i think a revived Qubuntu spin would have been better, and leave Lubuntu for older system/netbooks for example
8 • Ikey Doherty MIA (by Jon Wright on 2018-10-29 02:09:11 GMT from Netherlands)
@2 "It is very suspicious for someone to disappear for a whole month"
More like several months. And not strange at all, he did the same when Mint hired him as a contractor.
9 • step right up & find the marble, sir (by david esktorp on 2018-10-29 02:09:56 GMT from United States)
Red Hat should be called Red Shield. IBM buying Red Hat is like Microsoft buying Mojang; Ouroboros. NWO sets their own value when they play these shell games.
10 • Discover in Lubuntu (by Charlie on 2018-10-29 02:28:34 GMT from Hong Kong)
Discover is not designed for lightweight DEs like LXQt.
Actually software center should not be included in a light DE, users should know that if they choose a DE based on performance rather than full fledged desktop, there is a price. For a full DE, go for KDE Plasma.
Comparatively I think Muon has already done a great job in providing a basic UI for software management. To use GNOME software in LXQt is just not practicable, the system will be bloated with both UI toolkits installed.
11 • The new, improved--just like most all current Linux distributions--Lubuntu. (by R. Cain on 2018-10-29 02:37:12 GMT from United States)
From the “Feature Story” (by Jesse Smith)--"Lubuntu 18.10--now with LXQt”
**************************************************************
[All added emphasis is mine]
”...The project has also reported that it plans to focus on being RELATIVELY LIGHT AND MODERN, but WILL NO LONGER FOCUS ON SUPPORTING OLDER HARDWARE...”
”...Lubuntu 18.04 was provided as a 1GB ISO file...”
”...The latest release of Lubuntu is provided AS A 1.6GB DOWNLOAD ...”
”...Lubuntu 18.10 required 280MB of memory when signed into LXQt, 55% MORE THAN THE DISTRIBUTION NEEDED TO RUN LXDE. The new version of Lubuntu consumed 4.6GB of disk space with a fresh install, a FULL GIGABYTE MORE than the previous version. ..”
*******************************************************
And last, but not least--
“Lubuntu has a visitor supplied average rating of: 8.8/10 from 148 review(s).”
Watch this 'VISITOR RATING' drop like a rock.
12 • The new, improved--just like most all current Linux distributions--Lubuntu. (by R. Cain on 2018-10-29 03:06:56 GMT from United States)
antiX--859 MB download--lightweight but very capable set of applications.
MX-17.1--1200 MB download; VERY complete set of modern applications.
'SYSTEMD' nowhere to be found on either.
antiX runs on ALL hardware, from the very oldest, to the very newest.
MX-17.1 runs on almost all the oldest hardware.
MX-17.1 is #2 in Distrowatch's 7-day rolling average, and has a 'Visitor Supplied Average Rating' of 9.5, from 422 reviews; the highest of ANY distro. (Mint and Ubuntu are 4th and 5th; Lubuntu is 15th; most POSITIVE reviews are for the OLD LXDE version)
So why aren't you using MX-17.1?
13 • Lubuntu and LXDE vs LXQt (by Spencer on 2018-10-29 03:31:39 GMT from United States)
I can appreciate, with GTK2 slowly dying off and the change giving a valid reason to consider alternatives anyway, why it made sense to jump to Qt. I want to assume that over time LXQt will match what LXDE could do, but at the moment it is slightly disappointing in the use case I actually care about.
LXDE's lightweight but complete GUI (I've never needed to spend more than 5 minutes explaining how to use a system with LXDE) with 'buntu compatibility was nice not only for older machines, but for purpose-driven VMs. While I agree all day long that the common machine is getting powerful enough that the resource jump is no big deal, I do not think the common machine is getting powerful enough that these resources are moot if someone is virtualizing something. A similar issue exists with the distinction between x86 and x86_64, the physical machines it's a moot point but the VM usage makes an observable difference.
Since LXQt is new enough that this is the first Lubuntu release with it, and since we can fall back on 18.04 (so long as whatever needed software is trivially compatible), I am not currently terrified of the resource usage leap. I hope it either goes back down a little bit with time to refine the environment, or else it can at least stay steady and not rise in the next few years.
I do wish, given it's supposed to be for lighter environments, that Lubuntu had an ISO with all this software that the "common user" needs but also an ISO without, since Lubuntu's idea of a "Minimal Installation" is not very minimal at all and the ISO size change is annoying (even if, ideally, a single time for most people).
There was a span of time where I went to the trouble to use a netinstall ISO and cherry-pick the packages to make essentially a lightweight Lubuntu-esque system with LXDE but missing most of the stuff I didn't care about. It would be nice if I didn't have to go back to that, but I'm guessing I'm not in a big enough audience when I virtualize an entire environment to isolate some software (like IDEs at risk of conflicting with each other over the span of a few terms of classes) without overly-complicating my main system or having to reinstall it on a regular basis.
I suppose enough of the detail is kept to simplify it as this: I am understanding that LXQt is a new thing for Lubuntu, I would be upset if a well aged setup were like this from a change but I am hopeful that as LXQt matures it will strike a friendlier midpoint between where LXDE left us and where LXQt is right now. My only major gripe is the collision of "lightweight" and only offering an ISO that bundles fuller software that will probably need to be re-downloaded with updates soon anyway.
(Topic jump: Wow on the Solus Project, I too hope Ikey is okay. Things as described here certainly do not look promising, but at least there is room to imagine good endings yet.)
14 • IBM purchasing Red Hat (by Trevor on 2018-10-29 04:37:13 GMT from Canada)
Some people are acting like Chicken Little about this subject. From my knowledge of IBM, they support GNU/Linux 100%. In fact if you go to www.linuxfoundation.org you'll find that they are one of the major donors to the Linux Foundation. However I will say that it should be interesting to see how Fedora, and the other projects based on RHEL, will fare after the acquisition is completed.
15 • IBM's plans for Red Hat (by SImon Morgan on 2018-10-29 04:59:18 GMT from United States)
Several rumours suggest IBM will roll-out its own voice-powered personal assistant on the GNOME desktop, rivalling Alexa, Siri and Cortana.
Gnome version 3.50 already may introduce a barrage of innovation such as: the ability to hum a melody and call up the corresponding track from Rhythmbox; recipe-of-the-day push-notifications for one of the 50 tantalising dishes on the recipes app – thereby tapping into proprietary algorithms and user search behaviour.
Later versions may also allow users to change Adwaita’s default folder colour scheme from brown to Manilla. Whether Manilla-coloured folders will trickle down to Canonical’s (Ubuntu) own iteration of the GNOME desktop remains unclear. “For now, purple and orange are here to stay”, comments Shudderworth.”
Not all planned features inspired excitement. Some conservative minorities expressed concern about the missing ability to close windows altogether in the next iteration of the prototype touch-screen desktop. “We can’t support everything”, says lead developer Klaus Gunther Mueller. “People need virtual concierge services - the ability to hide or disable them only bastardises the flawless GNOME workflow.”
16 • Big Red Hat News (by M.Z. on 2018-10-29 05:12:11 GMT from United States)
@14
Only time will tell if this is a big step backward for Linux & Open Source, or just business as usual, though there are always too many Chicken Littles in the Linux community. Red Hat will obviously give away their code regardless & the GPL will protect the code for use by the community as it always has. I can't see a scenario where RH will be anything other than number one in Linux for Business for some time to come. Regardless $34 Billion is a huge deal & this will have some sort of significant impact on the Linux community. We could see Red Hat employees shuffling around across the Linux landscape, or perhaps even some sort of big new Linux startup/Red hat fork in the future.
One interesting note, the New York Times claims that Red Hat will retain a fair degree of independence at IBM & will be a separate division.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/28/business/ibm-red-hat-cloud-computing.html
I think a fairly independent Red Hat division could chug along fairly well for a good while. The team at Red Hat certainly understand the power of a community or even business fork, so they will probably avoid rocking the boat too much.
I can certainly see this playing out with little drama, but if not things could easily look like the whole OpenOffice to LibreOffice forking incident. If it's not smooth it will sure be interesting to watch.
17 • Red Hat and IBM (by Bobbie Sellers on 2018-10-29 05:30:29 GMT from United States)
Don't be overly pessimistic.
IBM has been working with Linux for a long time.
It is not as though Red Hat had been acquired by
Microsoft, eh?
bliss
18 • Lubuntu (by Argent on 2018-10-29 05:44:12 GMT from United States)
@#6 Carlos Felipe Araujo: Agree with Lubuntu coming in at 1.6 gb is a bit over bloated and no longer a lightweight distro. Used Lubuntu for a short while several years back, super fast and light on resources.
All gone bye-bye now
Why so big, all a user needs is a terminal to get started!
19 • lubunu lxqt, solus, fedora 29 (by saravanan on 2018-10-29 05:55:18 GMT from India)
Lubuntu lxqt:
I stopped using lubuntu-lxqt. For me i feel like i would rather use KDE Plasma (KDE NEON) while preferring to qt. xfce seems to be a better option for me for now.
Solus ikey:
While i was using solus.. i felt ikey like doing superfast development. Hope he will return to the project with greater ideas than before.
Fedora 29:
@jesse_smith... Please do consider reviewing fedora 29.
20 • Re #3 (by x on 2018-10-29 06:23:15 GMT from United States)
IBM has long been quietly contributing to Linux and other open source software. This is due to several factors, not necessarily out of a sense fo altruism. The friction with MS may have had a minor influence, but customer request is the major factor.
The SCO lawsuit is an indicator of the level of IBM’s commitment to open source, all end users not just IBM and it’s customers, benefited. IBM could have capitulated as others did (see Groklaw archive for details). I do not believe there will be anymore challenges to the GPL or Linux in general because IBM paid some very talented lawyers a lot of money to make sure it did not happen again.
Several years ago IBM ran an advertisement during a Super Bowl game promoting their new hardware and Linux in response to statements comparing IBM to a dinosaur and Linux as a poor alternative to MS products. It was simple, three frames one word each in the following order: ’T-Rex ‘ ‘Linux’ ‘IBM’. For several many articles appeared on IBM’s developer works website, freely available to read, promoting Linux in general and providing advice and information.(I am not sure if this is still going on as I have had to reduce my time reading on the web.) While there are many developers that have made Linux work on many platforms some gratis some paid, IBM pays employees to make sure it runs their hardware.
Red Hat has had a working relationship with IBM for many years. Businesses were looking to IBM for software support and were excited about the up and coming new operating system - Linux. Red Hat looked like it would survive long term. The partnership made sense for both companies and because of the GPL many others also reaped a few rewards. IBM buying Red Hat will not be a negative for Linux or the projects mentioned. Red Hat employees may or may not be happy with the results, however, their customers will not see any negativity. IBM is not going to ruin what has become a money maker for them, this is not going to be the same scenario as Oracle or many of the failed commercialized Linux projects.
I do not see any great advantages or disadvantages for most Linux developers or users other than what has been occurring quietly behind the scenes for the past several years. IBM will never control Linux or 90% of open source developers, the GPL ensures this will never happen. I am neutral on IBM acquiring Red Hat.
21 • Fedora, Lubuntu and Solus (by Brenton Horne on 2018-10-29 07:23:40 GMT from Australia)
I wasn't very happy to read that Fedora 29 was delayed, but alas it apparently had two pretty significant blocker bugs, one in DNF and the other in GNOME Software. They had a go or no-go meeting on whether F29 would be delayed another week, and they've said 'go', so unless something pretty significant pops up in the next two days it should be released on 31 Oct 2018 (in my timezone anyway). I'm actually writing this from a F29 release candidate live session.
As for Lubuntu's change I said it was a shame when it was decided it would happen and I'm saying it now that it has. Lubuntu's main appeal has always been its low resource usage, but LXQt comes and defecates all over that. But alas they have to do what they believe is the best use of their time.
As for Solus it's at least (correct me if I'm wrong) the second time this year that a distribution project leader and founder has disappeared leaving the rest of the development team high and dry, with the other being Void (Juan RP; it seems like he still hasn't been in contact with them, despite their last contact with him being of in January!). Sadly, a similar situation may soon emerge from the PCLinuxOS project with Bill Reynolds (texstar) being deathly ill with cancer, but at least in that case the rest of the team has had some warning (of course, there's always a chance that like Patrick Volkerding and his cancer scare a year ago, this story may have a happy next chapter).
22 • IBM bought Red Hat (by Pierre on 2018-10-29 07:49:06 GMT from Germany)
Well, I never trusted Red Hat from the beginning. It is/was just a business out to make a pretty penny. Now, Red Hat had made quite a lot of money one time. Who cares about one-source, it is only company owned one-source, or whatever-source.
Companies are not really interested in desktop users (free users), but only out there to make money. We tend to forget that, don't we? I won't be surprised to hear that Cannonical is bought by Microsoft in the near future.
23 • LXQt (by RV on 2018-10-29 08:20:49 GMT from Romania)
I've yet to grasp what makes LXQt a worthwhile upgrade over good old LXDE. The former only brings marginal resource requirement benefits over Plasma (KDE Neon needs 350 MB at idle, while the distro I'm writing this on, Antergos KDE, clocks in at 400 MB), while lacking KDE's exquisite customization options and features. The latter had already carved out its own niche where no other full-featured DE could compete.
My point is that, unless LXQt somehow manages to get on par with LXDE's ultra-frugal hardware requirements, there's little to no point at all to its existence IMO. On the Qt side of things, the current state of affairs is very dissimilar to the GTK landscape, where GNOME's bizarre philosophy has enabled all the Budgies, the Pantheons, the MATEs and the Cinnamons of the world to thrive, as LXQt has nothing going for it that could enable it to outgun KDE Plasma.
24 • IBM Acquisition of RedHat (by Jack on 2018-10-29 09:05:23 GMT from United States)
I see a lot of Pollyannaish responses to this news. Anyone who thinks this will be anything other than a disaster for FOSS should think back to the Oracle acquisition of Sun. We're reaching a point of consolidation where kernel development is effectively in the hands of a half dozen corporate sponsors whose interests do not align with the values of free software. I expect a fork of linux to come sooner than later.
25 • Too Qt for Lubuntu and more POWER (by Andre on 2018-10-29 09:05:43 GMT from Canada)
While I don’t personally use Lubuntu, the switch to LXQt means a number of applications that I do use, like qpdfview and trojitá, are finally getting some love in Ubuntu-land; and that’s great to see.
As for IBM buying Red Hat, this can only mean better support for POWER on Linux. I don’t see any downsides.
26 • LXQt (by Rooster12 on 2018-10-29 09:08:41 GMT from United States)
Don't know what the fuss is all about with LXQt, don't use or want a qt based browser or any application based on qt. Qt brings way too many dependencies that just bloat an install. More the dependencies then the chances of breakage and system resources with qt is consumed. Like others not interested in anything qt based including LXQt.
Like Lxde a lot, they should just fork it and leave an excellent DE alone, and Openbox doesn't work well or not at all with LXQt.
Sad mess!
27 • Solus (by JIm on 2018-10-29 10:55:06 GMT from United States)
I used the original Solus, and Ikey shut it down in one day. Ikey is a very talented developer, but I decide to not use Solus 2 for the very reason I did not trust Ikey to keep it going. I also tried Point Linux, which again had a disappearing developer. I now stick to major distributions with large teams and at least some corporate support. Ubuntu Mate being my main Distro. I am willing to dual boot some longer lived smaller distros.
28 • @22 (by saravanan on 2018-10-29 11:01:30 GMT from United States)
"I won't be surprised to hear that Cannonical is bought by Microsoft in the near future."
After reading it.. i thought like 'yeah! i forgot that one'. All in the hands of shuttleworth's dragons.
It seems like windows is always open for dragons to jump.
29 • IBM Buys Red Hat (by penguinx64 on 2018-10-29 12:42:03 GMT from United States)
IBM buying Red Hat is a good move. Maybe it will help prevent Microsoft from meddling where they don't belong.
30 • Solus and Void Linux (by Winchester on 2018-10-29 12:51:18 GMT from United States)
Void Linux has carried on just fine to date despite the project leader disappearing. Updates still rolling in.
Hopefully,Solus will also. It's a very useful distribution with the ability to play almost all online video "out of the box" without using the dreaded Adobe Flash plug-in. The most reliable file copying operation in my experience .... with Nautilus. Up-to-date internet software etc. .
I have no fear of smaller distribution projects shutting down. I just keep my ~ /home/ folders and partitions backed-up. Maybe a couple of other locations such as /usr/local/share/ backed-up as well.
Then,if a distribution project does shut down,I can just copy any useful,needed, and /or important files over to another distribution in less than an hour.
31 • @29 where one doesn't belong (by Pepe on 2018-10-29 13:05:35 GMT from France)
"IBM buying Red Hat is a good move. Maybe it will help prevent Microsoft from meddling where they don't belong."
Red Hat was a business entity, so could be bought by another business entity. Microsoft is also a business entity, and it has the right to do business, buying and selling. It bought Github, it'd most probably buy Cannonical. It is a make and sell, buy and sell world.
32 • @22: (by dragonmouth on 2018-10-29 13:07:14 GMT from United States)
"I won't be surprised to hear that Cannonical is bought by Microsoft in the near future."
Canonical and Microsoft have been joined philosophically since Shuttleworth started Canonical. He has always been a Bil Gates wannabe. Shuttleworth has modeled Canonical after Microsoft, especially in its policies. It is only a matter of time before MS acquires Canonical.
33 • LXQt vs LXDE (by Kevin on 2018-10-29 13:18:58 GMT from United States)
I prefer dwm, which I'm currently running under Gentoo.
34 • LXDE v LxQt (by Matthew Rivers on 2018-10-29 13:21:37 GMT from United States)
Moving to LxQt (and adding Open/LibreOffice) defeats the purpose of a lightweight OS for older computers, which was the stated mission of Lubuntu in the first place. If the resources needed start approaching those of Xubuntu, then what is the point, other than to have another version of Ubuntu with a different desktop?
35 • LXQt vs. LXDE (by pin on 2018-10-29 13:39:25 GMT from Sweden)
@33, Exactly, although I prefer awesome wm on Void and NETBSD :-)
36 • IBM (by YumaJoe on 2018-10-29 13:43:12 GMT from United States)
I was hoping IBM would but ArcaOS 5.0 Blue Lion and revitalize OS2 . Not sure why, but I have always been curious about OS2.
37 • Chicken Little (by Tim on 2018-10-29 13:45:22 GMT from United Kingdom)
Why the beef with Chicken Little? It's Foxy Loxy people should be worried about. IBM is all sweetness and light these days but used to run a nasty business model and who knows may again.
38 • LXQT (by Semiarticulate on 2018-10-29 13:53:20 GMT from United States)
Well that kills Lubuntu for me. To my mind, LXQT occupies a strange space in the Linux world. It isn't truly "lightweight", but it isn't as feature-full as the larger desktop environments. But to each their own and I wish them all the best. Thank goodness for Antix!
39 • LXQt (by Greigh on 2018-10-29 14:04:25 GMT from United States)
It's always sad to see a good thing pass away, but everything changes and everything dies. Fortunately Gnu/Linux is big and there are several great options out there. I'm a huge fan of antix and MX-17 (all the strengths of Debian, without systemd, none of the Ubuntu bloat, and ripping-fast on my 10-year-old hardware.)
There's other options out there too. This is an uncomfortable opportunity to find something that's actually BETTER. If you look you will find something good for you and soon you'll be wondering why you didn't take the leap sooner.
40 • Lubuntu 18.10 (by Terry Parris on 2018-10-29 14:07:32 GMT from United States)
Just one note to Jesse Smith. I'm uncertain what version of Discover package manager is used in Lubuntu 18.10. It may be an older version of Discover than is currently out in say KDE Neon. Though I'm NOT enamored with graphical package managers like Discover, the current version with KDE Neon is fast and responsive. It does NOT display the issues you found in it with Lubuntu. Given time the quirks that Lubuntu has with Discover will work themselves out. Remember, this is their first outing with Lxqt and Lxqt isn't even up to it's 1.0 version yet.
And like you, I prefer the older package managers like Synaptic or Muon. There are low level packages that NONE of the graphical package managers like Discover or even Gnome Software shows any representation of. And yes, I've done a lot of work with command line package managers as well (apt, DNF, as well as others). Perhaps the developers of Synaptic and Muon will bring even newer versions of those package managers up. I've noted that some distro's don't even work with Synaptic and Gnome desktop anymore which is a shame. Synaptic really could use updating to the current GTK+. Muon on the other hand still works with the current Qt and KDE. It too has some issues. Both package managers talked about here have their place in Linux for power users who would rather use them than command line tools.
This is nothing more than an observation rather than a rant or complaint. We ALL must look at things as a whole and from what I saw of your review, it was honest and reflective of the switch the Lubuntu team is working on. Here's to the Lubuntu team for making the switch rather painless for it's user base and to them continuing to make the Lxqt desktop better as time goes by.
41 • It really is Dead Rat this time (by CS on 2018-10-29 14:30:47 GMT from United States)
IBM buying Red Hat:
1. Key contributors don't want to work for a dinosaur like IBM so will find greener pastures. Expect a brain drain.
2. You know what they say about good intentions. With an org the size of IBM you spend half your year in re-orgs so your best or your worst intentions are unlikely to ever see the light of day. Pace of innovation takes a big hit.
3. IBM is committed to open source -- so long as it translates to earnings. Truth is they're desperate to make their Watson and cloud nonsense go and everything is going to be aligned around that goal. How much of Watson is FOSS again?
I would have said this was good news for SUSE, but they're owned by Micro Focus / HPE these days so they're in a very similar hell.
In short: the world's moved on.
42 • Lubuntu alternatives (by Jason Hsu on 2018-10-29 14:50:39 GMT from United States)
In my opinion, any distro with the high overhead of a Ubuntu base is disqualified from being lightweight. A distro with a Debian base but no Ubuntu base is MUCH lighter. I can't help but think that growth in the Ubuntu base rather than the switch from LXDE to LXQT is the main reason the new Lubuntu is heavier.
If you want LXDE, try SparkyLinux 4 (my current favorite), which has a Debian Stretch base and is MUCH lighter and faster than any Ubuntu derivative. If you want LXQT, try SparkyLinux 5, which has a Debian Buster base.
If you're willing to try something with Xfce, try MX Linux. It has a Debian Stable base and is EXTREMELY popular. MX Linux is from the same people who produce antiX LInux and is currently #4 on DistroWatch, ahead of Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and other longtime favorites.
43 • Minimal LXQt; 66 MB used :P (by Dojnow on 2018-10-29 15:37:29 GMT from Bulgaria)
66 MB of RAM used on a 32-bit system
For a base: Debian mini.iso Skip "Select and install software" (tasksel) item; apt clean ; apt install --no-install-recommends xserver-xorg-core xserver-xorg-video-amdgpu | intel | modesetting | nouveau | radeon (firmware-amd-graphics libgl1-mesa-dri) xserver-xorg-input-kbd xserver-xorg-input-mouse (xserver-xorg-input-synaptics) xserver-xorg-input-evdev xinit dbus-x11 policykit-1 oxygen-icon-theme openbox obconf-qt lxqt-core lxqt-config lxqt-policykit lxqt-qtplugin phonon-backend-vlc | -gstreamer (+ gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad) pulseaudio kmix | pavucontrol-qt konqueror (+ kpart-webkit konqueror-nsplugins) | qupzilla (falkon)) ; apt clean
+
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Getty#Automatic_login_to_virtual_console
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Xinit#Autostart_X_at_login
44 • Speaking about Oracle (by RJA on 2018-10-29 16:00:58 GMT from United States)
Looks like one of the recent announcements, is a threat to ban people without a commercial license from touching Java. I'm not kidding. The absurd software license will be in effect, starting in 2020, if not 2019 as well. IIRC, it goes into effect in 2019.
45 • Lubuntu (by Friar Tux on 2018-10-29 16:06:38 GMT from Canada)
Have tried Lubuntu, not my cup of tea. So far, on my machine, Cinnamon seems to have the best options. Though having said that, I DO agree that Lubuntu can no long claim to use lower resources. Actually, It appears to be a matter of physics. Nature always fills the available space - CPU's have more resources/storage available these days so OS's can now become bigger and do more - Lubuntu being no exception.
As for Ikey's 'disappearance', I have said this before, most computer/software developers do not do well in large groups of people that's why they prefer sitting at their computers (I get panicky even at a small birthday party). I hope Ikey is just stepping back to get some air, or recharge. (Hoping for the best, here. Have dealt with cancer - not fun.) Let's give Ikey some space.
And on the subject of RHEL and IBM, it's a two company merger - no big deal. Even if Canonical and Microsoft merge - NO BIG DEAL. Linux will survive both. The sky will never fall.
46 • Boring old IBM will bring much needed stability to Linux. (by Joe In Chicago on 2018-10-29 16:32:30 GMT from United States)
At least Red Hat. We might get GUIs that do all need to and nothing else.
47 • Lubuntu (by Vern on 2018-10-29 16:33:17 GMT from United States)
Lubuntu DOES come with the complete LibreOffice, and VLC installed.
That might be why the ISO is much larger.
I have no complaints using Lubuntu LXQT. Works well on my 10 year old system.
48 • Lubuntu with LXQt better on HiDPI/4K (by Marjana on 2018-10-29 16:51:45 GMT from Slovenia)
At first i was a bit worried about the switch to LXQt but after trying it out I think it was a good move, especially considering it is the very first version with this desktop. I find it looks better in general and what I like the most is that it has better support for 4K/HiDPI displays. So yeah. So far I am very happy with the switch and looking forward to further versions with even more improvements.
49 • @ 23 LXQt vs KDE Plasma (by Eule on 2018-10-29 17:45:12 GMT from Switzerland)
Computing is not only about RAM - usage, it is also about CPU - power.
On my Dual Core CPU (2GB RAM) Lubuntu LXQt runs fine, while KDE Plasma struggles. So, there is a place and future for the LXQt desktop, being a lightweigt Qt-desktop, like LXDE was and still is lightweight GTK+ desktop.
However, I do not like the Lubuntu 1.6 GB ISO image, its just to big, and hope they will reduce its size and keep the spirit of Lubuntu-LXDE, which was to make a small, very lightweight but
still fully functional and extensible distro.
Thanks.
"Our opinions do not really blossom into fruition until we have expressed them to someone else." (Mark Twain)
50 • @26 LXQt & Openbox (by Eule on 2018-10-29 18:08:38 GMT from Switzerland)
I strongly disagree. Openbox DOES work well with LXQt; and I don't see a reason why it should not.
Thanks!
"The rule is perfect: in all matters of opinion our adversaries are insane." (Mark Twain)
51 • "High" memory usage ... (by frisbee on 2018-10-29 18:15:41 GMT from Switzerland)
I just want to remind that "high memory usage" is not the same as "high memory usage".
There are (too) many people discussing Ubuntu or Elementary or ... using a lot of memory and all they did was, to open the task manager and read the number " - 1.5 GB RAM" or "750 MB RAM". So easy it's not. The system using 500 MB RAM can actually have higher RAM usage than the system using 1.5 GB and be much less responsive ("laggy") than the system using 750 MB RAM!
Most task managers don't tell you anything but one number and the most users don't understand how the memory management works and understand only the number. They also usually know nothing about what kind of memory management their distribution uses and so on and on ...
Elementary for example is taking approx. 1.5 GB of RAM but it's actually using only around 500 MB. The rest is only (pre-) cached and it'll get free if needed by some other application!
There are many good (and complicated to understand) articles about memory management and nobody should discuss it on a place like Distrowatch if he/she doesn't exactly understand how the things work.
For the majority who does not understand how it works, I can give only the simplest recommendation: use live USB and try how it works for you. Make sure you always use exactly the same USB key for all your trials.
Also, do not compare 32-bit and 64-bit versions!!! Antix out-of-the-box, in 32-bit version, uses only approx. half of the RAM in comparison to a 64-bit version.
If you then use a 64-bit version, add WiFi auto start and couple of other small things, you're quickly on 250 ~ 500 MB RAM on iceWM (without even firinig FireFox)! ;)
52 • @ 47 Lubuntu's ISO (by Eule on 2018-10-29 18:29:48 GMT from Switzerland)
Yes, and they apparently have Plasma session included which also takes some space on the ISO.
Thanks!
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." (Mark Twain)
53 • Dear IBM... (by cykodrone on 2018-10-29 20:05:24 GMT from Canada)
Make a systemd free version? In time for Christmas?
Please do something about the atrocious package management, plagiarize Synaptic if you have to.
Please go back to your original desktop paradigm, keep swipey GUIs for swipey devices, some of us still use mice and keyboards.
I wish you were still in the PC hardware business, I miss you.
@53 Why would IBM mess with a FREE development and test bed (Fedora)? Keep your hat on, pun intended. :D CentOS will have to wait and see if IBM copyrights the proprietary software, but I have my doubts, aside from the commercial versions, of course.
54 • ibm (by Tim on 2018-10-29 20:26:10 GMT from United States)
I'm not sure I understand any of the doom and gloom about IBM's purchase. As others pointed out, IBM has been backing Linux for years, including during some of the darkest times for Linux (the SCO stuff.)
I think the logic behind their purchase is their large computers. I wonder what AIX's future will be with Red Hat being in house
55 • How tout give rights on apps (by Sebastien on 2018-10-29 22:30:04 GMT from France)
Using only unix rights might appear too restrictive to address more complex situations. Adding ACL to your file system would give you more flexibility to manage rights for several groups.
56 • Not Much To The Doom & Gloom (by M.Z. on 2018-10-29 23:09:56 GMT from United States)
Well, yes there is lots of silly doom & gloom talk.
If current IBM management have any clue what they got their hands on they will not foul things up in the short term, because if they do the very deep talent pool at Red Hat will move elsewhere & likely get a massive amount of venture capital funds for a new fork. IBM would have too foul up bad for that to happen, but as I said above I can't see anything beside a OpenOffice to LibreOffice situation & that doesn't hurt the Linux community much at all. At very least there will be some Red Hat people moving to high positions in IBM & there will be a lot lower chances of a Oracle + Sun = LibreOffice fork situation.
This deal will bring at least $2.5 billion a year in revenue into IBM & they overpaid on the stock because they saw the major growth that Red Hat continues to enjoy. I'd guess they get to at least $3 Billion in annual revenue from Red Hat before taking any risky moves with a cash cow like RHEL. If they understand the GPL & the Open Souce community as well as they should have before making the deal then things will continue mostly as is for years to come. I think that's both for better (as in plenty of RHEL related code improvements migrating through other distros), and for worse (I bet GNOME will still be a trash DE for most PC users for a good long time).
I do think there is some risk of the RHEL side of the Linux community stagnating & experiencing some fair amount of brain drain over time if things are only managed 'well enough'. I'd guess that the most likely bad scenario here is that IBM eventually gets to a point where they want to do things that will make RHEL stagnate & shrink over the long term. It would be bad for average Linux PC users like me on account of how much code RHEL gives to the community. I think that's the only serious risk, but I don't know how high that risk is & would want to hear from a couple of really strong sources before jumping to any conclusions.
57 • @33 & @35, @36 (by frisbee on 2018-10-29 23:39:33 GMT from Switzerland)
@33 & @35:
Are you guys lost in time? Gentoo, NETBSD, dwm ... AAAAAawesome 😂
Tilling WM & Unix were „yesterday“ in 1979 😄
Never mind ...
(I Stil use Solaris with CDE or from cmd sometimes ... 😁😁😁😁😁)
@36:
If you are curious about OS2, you can simply BUY it and TRY it. It‘s still here under the „eCom Station“ guise (and much better then original).
https://www.ecomstation.com
Unless you own a bank and your antique server must keep up and running because of some antique 16-Bit applications, I wouldn’t really recommend it. Only use for it is to install VirtualBox on it and an OS into it. 😉
It was junk two decades ago and it does everything different then others. Most important, there is no SW for it. Yes, there are some extras you could add over yum but ... if yum, then ... a proper OS with yum.
Let OS to OS_users. 😜
58 • Lubuntu LXQT (by SirFrag on 2018-10-30 01:08:07 GMT from United States)
Lubuntu seems great and slick when I do a clean install, but when I installed lubuntu-desktop from another *buntu, it messed up icons for the original flavor (Mate). It seemed slick but not well tested. I'll wait a while for that one to settle. Strangely, the classically unstable Kubuntu now seems to be trouble-free! :)
59 • @42 bloat? (by Miguel on 2018-10-30 03:22:34 GMT from France)
Tried Lubuntu 18.10 and Sparky 5.5 LXQt. I see no discernible difference in performance. If anything, Lubuntu uses slightly less memory. I'm not using an old PC, so it may make a difference there.
60 • SUSE, RedHat, Void, Solus and so on ... (by Tumbled Tux on 2018-10-30 07:17:47 GMT from United States)
IBM
IBM said on Sunday it had agreed to acquire U.S. software company Red Hat for $34 billion, including debt, as it seeks to diversify its technology hardware and consulting business into higher-margin products and services.
IBM has long history trail for Operating Systems : PC-DOS, IBM z/OS, and IBM-AIX, and now, RHEL.
Hope, IBM acquisition of RHEL will change the business model significantly.
SUSE
Over the years, European Linux power SUSE has changed owners several times.
First, it was acquired by Novell in 2004. Then, Attachmate, with some Microsoft funding, bought Novell and SUSE in 2010. This was followed in 2014, when Micro Focus purchased Attachmate and SUSE was spun off as an independent division. Now, SUSE has announced EQT will buy it from Micro Focus for $2.5 billion.
The focus of Micro Focus is still remained unclear.
VOID and SOLUS
Void Linux and Solus Linux key developer disappeared.
No one wanna lead the project "Debian".
TuX is completely tumbled upside down!
What has gone wrong?
Am I wrong?
61 • @ 57 (by pin on 2018-10-30 08:09:33 GMT from Sweden)
Just so its clear...
NetBSD first release was in April 1993
The first 64bit processor was release in April 2003
The first awesome wm release was in September 2007
So, what exactly do you mean with 1979? ;-)
Some of us prefer really light systems. A full DE is not for me.
62 • Lubuntu's mission (by Betonforce on 2018-10-30 09:09:51 GMT from Poland)
I'd like to point out that the actual goals of Lubuntu team have changed. It's no longer about providing a distribution for old computers but a "[...] modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer" as said in this blog post:
https://lubuntu.me/taking-a-new-direction/
Personally I'll stick to Lubuntu 18.04 for as long as I can since it has Gnome applications I'm using and I don't like the idea of having piles of redundant libraries. I enjoy how lightweight the distribution is but it's not a primary concern for me anymore. For the time being I'm considering switching to Ubuntu Mate 20.04 which seems to be fairly compatible to my preferences while still relatively lean.
63 • LXQt and LXDE with OpenSUSE (by Winchester on 2018-10-30 14:52:49 GMT from United States)
Both LXQt and LXDE work quite well with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.
I thought that I would throw that out there for those considering alternatives.
LXQt on OpenSUSE Tumbleweed is between 290 MB and 350 MB of RAM upon startup. But,that's with a clipboard manager and Plank running,so,it could probably be made lower without those 2 autostarted.
One minor annoyance is a notification that the "LXQt Time and Date Plug-In is deprecated". Why it's deprecated,I don't know. Seems fine to me.
The "top" command shows RAM used and RAM cached.
LXQt is also snappy and responsive on RedCore Linux.
For LXDE,I would look at Calculate Linux. No Calculate LXDE image but,it can be easily installed as a session option. I have Calculate Linux Desktop MATE version with LXDE as another session option.
There's also WattOS and LX-Pup-SC for a lightning fast LXDE.
64 • @62 Betenforce: (by dragonmouth on 2018-10-30 16:16:42 GMT from United States)
"modular distribution"
What's so "modular" about Lubuntu?! There is only ONE module - the entire distro. All software in Lubuntu is tied to the "ubuntu-minimal" file. If you try to uninstall any software that was installed by default, "ubuntu-minimal" file is also uninstalled, making the system unusable. Lubuntu is as monolithic as any of the other distros in the *buntu family.
65 • 63 LXQt and LXDE (by mandog on 2018-10-30 17:23:43 GMT from Peru)
Or install any arch based system and run lxde gtk3 its been in the repros for 2 years fully ported to GTK3 totally complete unlike lxqt that is just a bloated waste of time.
66 • @61 (by frisbee on 2018-10-30 18:02:22 GMT from Switzerland)
Yep, I know that but still, couldn't ressist a little bit of trolling and exagerating.
My excuse if you found it an insult. It shouldn't have been.
Sometimes I also use i3 but, let's be honest -- it's hugely outdated. Even if Microsoft would rerelease Windows 3.1.5 in 2020, it would still stay the same old dinosaur. :) :) :)
It's O.K. for me if it works for you and it may have sometimes some usage but, on the other hand, it still doesn't make it more practical or modern or good looking or...
Also, it doesn't actually use that much less RAM (which is not really that important nowadays) than let's say IceWM and IceWM is much more usefull than i3.
There is a good reason why a Windows, Mac and Gnome are the most popular DE's, like it or hate it.
67 • window managers (by Tim on 2018-10-30 19:59:33 GMT from United States)
@62
Your thinking about the future is what I went through a few years ago when the transition to LXQt was announced. I was mostly in the GTK world and liked LXDE, but was happy with the GTK apps. I've loved Ubuntu MATE.
@66
One can't call a window manager outdated if it meets a specific use case. Tiling window managers work well for people with certain needs and setups. They're not outdated, they just aren't what you need.
For what its worth, all of my current Linux computers are running Ubuntu MATE, but on the one in my kids' room my default session is twm, because it loads instantly and gets me to a terminal faster than even a different virtual terminal (most of what I do on that system is running apt or a single web browser.)
On the computer I use to stream media, I default to IceWM, because MATE (and GNOME2) screensaver settings don't change the DPMS and screensaver values in X, so it's just easier to use the lightweight IceWM and issue those commands directly so the ballgame doesn't go black in the 4th inning.
I often grade student papers in fvwm, because I use a junky computer so lightweight matters and fvwm is easy to tab between multiple documents.
There's no such thing as the best window manager. The question is "what is the best window manager for this thing I'm currently doing on this computer I'm currently using."
68 • IBM (by ibm ecosystems on 2018-10-30 20:24:33 GMT from Portugal)
Search "IBM has invested close to $1 billion and dedicated hundreds of open source development, marketing, and evangelism resources to open source projects"
...and explore site at top, to have an idea about "big blue" commitment to open source.
Odds are this acquisition is a "marriage made in heaven" :-)
69 • Lubuntu is now LuXuQunTu? (by meanpt on 2018-10-30 21:27:43 GMT from Portugal)
... well, whatever! It's polished, runs fine and snappy in a 4GB ram machine (which one doesn't?) but ... to start with a 300+ MB toll, I'll look for a leaner or a more mature project. The only question is ... what will happen to LXLE, one of the lightest and striped down buntu derivatives (the other being Bodhi)?
70 • @ 66 (by pin on 2018-10-30 23:00:12 GMT from Sweden)
No worries and no hard feelings :-)
RAM or cpu are no issue on my machines, still I prefer to run awesome.
I really dislike Windows, Mac, Gnome and KDE. So, I'm probably a "non-regular" user?! I can do it with xfce, but I do prefer awesome. I don't even have a mouse, I don't miss one and I don't want one!
As for "the looks", its a matter of taste.
71 • @ 68 IBM investing... (by Pier on 2018-10-31 13:23:21 GMT from Germany)
"IBM has invested close to $1 billion and dedicated hundreds of open source development, marketing, and evangelism resources to open source projects"
The keyword is "invested" meaning, IBM is looking for a return for what it had invested, a huge return. Desktop won't bring in that money.
72 • IBM (by Jim on 2018-10-31 15:24:50 GMT from United States)
Qoute "The keyword is "invested" meaning, IBM is looking for a return for what it had invested, a huge return. Desktop won't bring in that money."
While I agree with you and even think you are correct, I still take a wait and see attitude. Red Hat too was looking for a big return on investment, and it sure looks like they got that, yet they maintained the Desktop. Maintaining the desktop makes some sense, it brings new people in to sell your other services. Name recognition is usually a good thing.
73 • IBM and Red Hat (by joncr on 2018-10-31 15:56:24 GMT from United States)
The acquisition of Red Hat is all about expanding cloud sales, especially into enterprises that want to integrate their local, physical, networks with the cloud. IBM has a good and large sales force. Apparently, the RH sales force is too small to keep up with current demand.
The fact that RHEL is Linux is much less important than its reputation and its "No Vendor Lock In" pitch.
Unless a batch of new RHEL workstation customers start complaining about Gnome, we won't see much change on the desktop. It would be nice if Gnome benefited financially from all this.
74 • a (by a on 2018-11-01 14:17:31 GMT from France)
gtk2 was great, gtk3 is unusable crap, so we have no choice but switch to Qt.
75 • Lubuntu 18.10 (by White Chocolate on 2018-11-01 21:50:52 GMT from United States)
1.6 GB is Bloated Its No Longer Lightweight This Is My Biggest Problem With 18.10
Personally I'll stick to Lubuntu 18.04 for as long as possible!
76 • Lubuntu 18.10 issues? (by Basil Fernie on 2018-11-02 12:51:30 GMT from South Africa)
After using 18.04 for a few months, I decided to use a lot of bandwidth and find out how Qt shapes up, using so much more resources. Overall impression: not too bad, but not enough to keep me in the Lubuntu corral that much longer. Accepting that this is for early adopters (which I habitually am), I was nonetheless annoyed to find that it was rather difficult to set up a wifi connection with my cellphone because of some weird text editor called, it seems, nmtui-edit which is the default for editing the connection's settings. Alright, so I have to jump through a hoop for some reason, but ... having edited all the relevant settings, including the password, I would now like to save the configuration. Unfortunately the editor provides, at the end of the settings page, the options and , but only allows selection of . A trace frustrating, right? How long a USB cable must I have? I'm not on somebody's network who takes cae of the connection costs.
Then also, I like to have the panel on the left-hand side ot the screen, not at the top or at the bottom. The settings editor is much more mouse-friendly than that for the network-manager (why couldn't it be used there too, I ask) but it doesn't seem possible to show the time horizontally - it insists on having it oriented vertically, as also the names of active tasks, effectively greatly reducing the number of active tasks which can be comfortably shown at once.
Trivial, I suppose, and likely to be cured in 18.10.1. But not way-out user cases, by any means.
Should I have been a tester on earlier release(s)? Willingly, but for one thing: my monthly data bundle ceiling is 1GB with vicious rate escalations above that ceiling. I'm a pensioner, I have to follow a rather strict financial regimen, and downloading 1.6GB even once a month is not on. As a tester I would want to test another update every week or two. Not to mention pursuing my pretty vigorous exchange of emails and following a variety of blogs - including DistroWatch, for which thank you very much, Mark Twain included.
I may come back to Lubuntu 18.10.x in 6 months or year, but I find myself favouring MX17.1 (1.2GB) more and more. MX was rather good as MX16, better as MX17, and very difficult to fault as MX17.1 Sure, I keep an eye out for MX17.2, but then just tell myself 'What more would you really want in a 17.2 release?
And for fun, or even just a change? Fat Dog 64 booting from a USB. Puppies tend to be great fun and very obliging.
77 • Cross-application confusion (by Basil Fernie on 2018-11-02 13:07:48 GMT from South Africa)
Reading the published version of my comment 76, I discover that the phrases representd by
open sharp-bracket Cancel close sharp-bracket
and
open sharp-bracket OK close sharp-backet
are left out entirely. (I leave it to your imagination to fill in the blanks.)
Sorry, until I saw how what I had typed was represented I was quite serene...
78 • 74 • a (by mandog on 2018-11-02 14:56:45 GMT from Peru)
gtk2 was great, gtk3 is unusable crap, so we have no choice but switch to Qt..
Well that does not explain very much apart from FUD.
GTK3 is fine modern not 16 years old and dated.
LXDE can be themed to match Mate Cinnamon by the user looks feels modern and is complete.
79 • @76: 18.10 issues, by Basil Fernie from Ubuntuland (by frisbee on 2018-11-02 19:16:16 GMT from Switzerland)
"... I was ... annoyed ... that it was rather difficult to set up a wifi connection with my cellphone ..."
One click on Network Managar, choose your Network, type the password -- Connected.
Obviously, first you have to setup your phone (make a hotspot). Or over BT.
"... having edited all the relevant settings ..."
Nothing needed if you're doing it the right way. Right click, select NW, type PW, connect/save, done.
See screenshot. https://ibb.co/fV5USf
"... I like to have the panel on the left-hand side ot the screen, ... but it doesn't seem possible to show the time horizontally ..."
See screenshot. (top left corner) https://ibb.co/hpeOnf
"... it insists on having it oriented vertically, as also the names of active tasks, effectively greatly reducing the number of active tasks which can be comfortably shown at once."
See screenshot. (left above middle) https://ibb.co/hpeOnf
"Trivial ..." ... you say it.
It didn't take more the a couple of minutes. Right click, settings, unchek a mark and change a couple of numbers. Best, you keep it "as God gives" if you can't handle it, unless you learn how to do it or you pay somebody who's gonna do it for you.
"Should I have been a tester on earlier release(s)?"
Better not. Maybe have a walk instead or take care of some plants, play with puppies ...
"... my monthly data bundle ceiling is 1GB ..."
Take a higher rate.
"... I have to follow a rather strict financial regimen ..."
You drink water if you can't afford a beer. Just "testing" to find that all what works, doesn't work, is not worth the effort.
Also:
- you can order it per post -- you have it for a couple of bucks
- you can ask your neighbour to download and burn it
- ......
"I may come back to Lubuntu 18.10.x in 6 months or year ..."
You can't. 18.10 has 9 (nine) months support. LTS (Long Time Support) releases are 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04 ...
Seldom read so much b...s..t in a couple of sentences.
80 • Lubuntu shows LXQT is still Not Ready (by mikef90000 on 2018-11-02 23:06:13 GMT from United States)
After running Lubuntu 18.10 in a VM, I'm very disappointed in the progress of the LXQT desktop.
It carries too much of the LXDE design baggage - Nothing to do with the Qt toolkit. At one time I read that that LXQT developers were impressed with the elegance of Xfce and would attempt to port much of that *functionality* using Qt.
Unfortunately it has not happened. The panel widgets (especially the app launcher) are the same tired, clunky LXDE design. It would be a larger task, but the Whisker menu really needs to replace the old-fashioned existing one. The panel needs a way to add/change/delete apps, separators and other widgets rather than just drag-and-drop (also a fault of GNOME2 derived MATE). What is so great about the LXDE panel, and can the Xfce panel itself be ported?
IMO the default 800x600 resolution in a VM is a Bug - you cannot access the bottom screen buttons on the Installer unless you increase the screen size. Oops!
Nope, I'm sticking with Xfce. They are making progress eliminating GTK+2 dependencies.
81 • lubuntu (by edcoolio on 2018-11-03 00:02:22 GMT from United States)
Well, I finally had the chance to download, install, and test the new Lubuntu.
Firstly, thank you Jesse for the thoughtful review. I appreciated the time and found, essentially, the same issues (both positive and negative) as you did. There really is nothing of note to add, other than CPU and GPU use.
Unfortunately, there is no reliable way of which I am aware that will give average CPU and GPU use percentages (with all eye-candy turned off) during daily driving. This would have been most helpful since I tend to max out the RAM on older equipment and throw in an SSD.
Regardless, I am an avid user of Lubuntu for many years now. 32 bit. 64 bit. Brand new machines out of the box. Old clunkers. Forced-PAE. You name it.
With all of this out of the way, I'll just come out and say it:
I am experiencing a performance decrease across the board on all older equipment. Lubuntu is forcing me to default download and install a ton of stuff that I may or may not have decided to install later.
Dependencies upon dependencies that are dependant on whatever dependencies that happen to be dependant because they are dependant dependencies.
In short, it is exceedingly bloated for what I am getting in return.
Frankly, I was perfectly happy with a lightened Ubuntu base and Synaptic with good network functionality out of the box. Pre-installed general software was small enough to quickly be either added or removed.
I guess what I was hoping for was speed/use tweaks more along the lines of what Bodhi, MX, and others seem to be accomplishing with relative ease
In the end, instead of streamlining software packages, the DE, kernel, and the base - Lubuntu seems to simply have bolted on a bloated DE with tons of unneeded packages that could have been easily downloaded if/when needed.
If I wanted that, I would just run Neon, Elementary, or for that matter, Ubuntu.
So, unfortunately, I'll be skipping this update for all production equipment and hoping that it was just Lubuntu's version of "LXQt 1.0". I'll be watching the next version very closely, as it may be the last that gets installed on my personal and professional consulting networks.
In the end, while I appreciate the effort that the Lubuntu group has put forth, I suspect it would have been better spent concentrating on minimizing footprint and maximizing speed rather than abandoning their niche to become yet another full DE with all the bells and whistles.
Signed,
A Lubuntu Apostate
82 • @79 Lubuntu LTS releases (by Rev_Don on 2018-11-03 02:34:17 GMT from United States)
"I may come back to Lubuntu 18.10.x in 6 months or year ..."
You can't. 18.10 has 9 (nine) months support. LTS (Long Time Support) releases are 14.04, 16.04, 18.04, 20.04, 22.04 ...
Yes, 14.04 WAS an LTS release, but support for it ended in April of 2017 so it isn't supported either.
83 • RHEL & Gtk (by M.Z. on 2018-11-03 07:23:48 GMT from United States)
Well if @73 is right, i suppose the 30X larger IBM could supercharge RHEL sales. If things are done really well I could see a fair amount of upside & additional growth potential for RHEL & other open source Red Hat products. Of course after you amp up sales you need more support, & they would probably add a fair number of devs after that. I could see a potential for a big win for Linux in that if the growth is sustainable & more investments are made in improving the final product. I hope to hear good things, but it could go bad over the long term.
@78
I think @ 74 is extrapolating out from crappy Gnome 3 to the entire tool kit in an unjustified way. Personally I like Gtk3 based Cinnamon almost as much as KDE, & I know there are plenty of good Qt & Gtk apps on my systems regardless of which DE I use. I think some people don't really get what's going on with the background software like the Gtk & don't see the distinction between the DE & the underlying components.
I really do think Gnome is a terrible UI for most potential users; however, the tech that come out the Gnome project feeds Cinnamon & lots of other great projects that are good for normal desktop users. It's good to remind yourself that open software can be used in lots of different ways & still do good, even if there are aspects of some projects we don't like. Open source code can be forked, modified & otherwise reused in so many ways.
84 • LXQT (by SimpleSimon on 2018-11-03 09:16:03 GMT from Germany)
It's a good switch to LXQT - I like it and it's fast with a lot of nice features.
@82 - You will get Updates until spring 2018 for 14.04 LTS (5 Years).
85 @82 / @ 81 | LTS, RAM, "Bloated" ... (by on 2018-11-03 09:58:51 GMT from Switzerland)
@76: Drop me a note if you need help on setting up your Lubuntu 18.10
@82: Ubuntu LTS repositories are used by all ~buntus, be it L~, X~, Mint or you name it.
14.04 LTS is reaches its End of Life on April 30, 2019 and then ESM starts.
--
@81:
"I am experiencing a performance decrease across the board on all older equipment."
I'm to experiencing a performance decrease across the board on my old equipment -- I wish I could go out and get myself a pair of new eyes, one new leg and one new arm and a brand new back. You have an easy "problem" to solve. ;)
You're using junk. Go out and get yourself something new.!
Just like any other OS, Linux goes with time and is developed for tomorow, not for yesterday. That it still supports the old junk is a bonus (for you) and bloat (for me).
Second: Don't just cry -- read, learn and learn thinking (== put collected information together & understand it).
If you want less CPU & GPU usage, install a 15 years old Linux on your 20 years old HW.
That thing is anyway not suitable for any serious usage anymore.
"... reliable way ... that will give average CPU and GPU use ... RAM ..."
You're obviously inexperienced home user so just a very basic hint: All you need is top.
Top is included out of the box in every Linux distro I know of.
http://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/top.1.html
Basically, all you need to do is: execute a command and write the output in a file. The simple way, not suitable for monitoring over time would be:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/420981/how-do-i-save-terminal-output-to-a-file
To be able to talk about "minimizing footprint and maximizing speed" one needs some basic understanding and some knowledge. Purely comparing two numbers leeds nowhere.
Example:
Please compare used resources on those 2 XFCE OS's:
https://ibb.co/dfuuCf
https://ibb.co/bPcd50
Which one does use more resources and do you know why? Which one is quicker and how was it achieved? Can I use both of them on a machine with 512 MB RAM?
I'll tell just as much: even if the RAM numbers are 218 MB vs. 1.66 GB, both of them use aprox. the same amount of RAM (on same HW and in same 32 or 64-bit versions) and yes, you can use them both of them on a HW with max. 512 MB of RAM. The OS with 1.66 GB RAM usage will only be much quicker on the same HW (if there's no some other bugs or other things that could cause some issues) despite being so "memory hungry".
RAM usage:
The numbers are not what they show but, how you read / interpret them. Discussing RAM usage needs some very basic understanding about how memory management works.
“Mem” and “Swap”, “total”, “free” and “used”, “buff/cache” ... There are many books written on the topic but, you get the basic idea of how the thing work if you throw a quick look at:
https://www.booleanworld.com/guide-linux-top-command/
Practical use of top, shortly and clearly explained:
https://www.tecmint.com/12-top-command-examples-in-linux/
Also, very useful, very short and very easy to understand writing:
https://www.binarytides.com/linux-command-check-memory-usage/
Now, since you are looking for a "daily driver", you'll need to learn how to use top and the alternatives for MONITORING.
Depending on your needs, you might want to have a look at:
https://serverfault.com/questions/395801/graphing-per-user-cpu-usage-on-a-linux-machine
or
https://serverfault.com/questions/387268/linux-cpu-usage-and-process-execution-history
If you are looking for some alternative ways of doing it, good place to start is:
https://serverfault.com/questions/163563/how-to-monitor-and-log-the-memory-cpu-usage-of-processes-over-time
About "bloated" Lubuntu:
Downloading it, also want's to be learned. You have a choice to download different ISO images.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/
However, usually only LTS releases will have alternate .iso downloads since all the others are not meant to be used by regular users but, are intended as a "showcase" and for testing purposes. Developer releases are changing every 6 months, are supported for only 9 months and usually come with a tons of bugs. Nobody sane woul reinstall every 6 months -- then you can stay at Windows 10 too. ;)
As for the "bloated" Linux itself, Lubuntu included: It's no problem to make a 200 MB big Linux distribution which will work with 64 MB RAM. There are some not bigger then some 15 MB and working under 32 MB RAM. They are just pretty useless for most.
There is not a one single bloated Linux nowhere on the horizon since there is no definition as when exactly one edition starts to be "bloated". That's purely personal "freedom of choice" and you define it according to your personal needs (== can be defined only according to the needs of the majority of audience).
Since the main purposees for using the computer are internet, office and multimedia and since the people have different view on same things, you can never make a one distribution which will be suitable for all of the users.
Generally speaking, most people expect the things move forward and expect the things having more features, being easier to use, looking better and so on. This inevitably makes the components out of which one OS consists getting bigger and bigger.
Most people usualy don't buy a smaller and slower car, based on older technology as a successor. PC is not different.
So, don't blame the Distro makers for that bloat, but yourself, your neighbor and the rest of the humanity.
Compare the Photoshop 1 with its successor, Adobe Creative Suite, do it with your favorite Office program, with your web browsing application ... Nobody is stopping you against using ranger, mpv, moc, feh, mutt, vim, mupdf, links ...
https://suckless.org/rocks/
"If I wanted that ..." interests nobody. What is of interest is the usage data based on usage of many millions of single "I"'s to find out how the systems are getting used, which applications users open how many times per day and so on and on ... that way one get's a chance to make an OS which will be optimal according to the choices of one big part of humanity. That's why developers are implementing the telemetry which users are then turning off and continue crying.
86 • Sharp brackets? (by Kragle von Schnitzelbank on 2018-11-03 21:51:25 GMT from United States)
I've heard of parentheses (), square brackets , and curly braces {}.
Was that a reference to < >, the characters that surround HTML things?
87 • Ram hungry web browsers will kill old hardware use very soon. (by Peter on 2018-11-04 04:18:10 GMT from Australia)
IMHO, what will make old pc hardware more or less obsolete in near future is not OS support for 32 bit cpus but ram hungry current (and future) generation of mainstream web browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome/Chromium, and etc.).
I have an hp probook laptop with 4gb ram and an i5-560 cpu and an onboard non-discrete intel graphics card and it is now struggling to work when Firefox has 10 tabs open (sometimes with less when open tabs use heavy scripting). Thus I will be looking at upgrading to 8 gb of ram soon otherwise this machine will be pretty much useless.
Lastly, in light of above observation, I don’t see what a “ light Linux distro” will be able to achieve when it comes to internet browsing using a modern browser.
88 • @79 18.10 issues by frisbee from Gnomeland. (by Basil Fernie on 2018-11-04 08:33:46 GMT from South Africa)
Well, you achieved something totally unexpected: helping me to understand why my ancestors may have left the borders of Gnomeland for Scotland, something like 700 years ago. Ahead of the game, it would seem, because it was almost 500 years ago that a certain wellknown Gnomish reformer initiated the persecution of non-quite-the-same-thinking other reformers, by drowning Felix Manz in Lake Zurich. Today you, probably unwittingly, introduced me to Everipedia. And had me exploring the behaviour of Lubu18.10 far more thoroughly and lengthily than I would have thought necessarily or desirable for a long-time Lubuntu user who just "wants to get on with the job". Testing, OK. Using, naah.
I can now report that
1. 18.10 is different in its network manager in terms of how you establsh a connection to a wifi hotspot. Your description works in 18.10, but not as far back as I can remember through versions of Lubuntu and many other forms of Linux (speaking loosely, of course). Checked last night on MX17.1, it does not work as you laid out. In other words this is a significant variation on past established procedure, and should have been notified to intending users. Five years ago I would have been ecstatic if the new, obvious, "natural" procedure had in fact been the routine. Now I'm thinking "Hmm, how does this ranslate in terms of securit
89 • Continuation of 88 (by Basil Fernie on 2018-11-04 09:36:13 GMT from South Africa)
When I was so rudely interrupted, I was trying to type "translate in terms of security" because now the attacker has one fewer hoops to jump through. Inadvertently I provided another example of a drawback - an unintended send due to finger trouble whil the connection was in un unintended live state. Convenience may be a mixed blessing, but I wish it had been advertised.
The impression I had of 18.10 was that it was essentially 18.04 with LXQt underpinnings, instead of LXDE. Fine. But some things have indeed changed without due notice. Another is the panel settings operation. Pretty well every new or experimental Linux that I've installed - and the first thing I do with such is to park the panel on the LHS where it doesn't take up so much precious vertical space, 90% of my usage is best done in A4 portrait, and a nice white-text on black-background would reduce eyestrain a great deal, so the proportions of normal screens are way out of my preferred ranges, sorry YouTube - rotates the bar from its horizontal orientation at the bottom of the screen pivoting on the left-most field, normally the main menu, retaining all the other icons so that the time appears at or clot to the top and pivoting each icon through 90 degrees in its field to remain readable. But not 18.10, it seems to have a different approach, namely: think ot the LHS and bottom edges as consisting of a single hollow and transparent tube. Take the RIGHThand-most field (in this case the time etc) and push firmly to the Left so all fields go through the right-angle bend at the vertex, pushing their ex-LH neighbours up the column so the left-to-right order becomes the top-to-bottom order, meaning time etc at the bottom. And the orientation of all icons is now incorrect.
This requires quite a lot of correction with the panel settings editor, which also works on its own paradigm. Which also has to be figured out by the unsuspecting upgrader from 18.04. And which, by the way, has a bug. Now you don't seem interested in a pensioner's bug reports, so I won't insult you by explaining it to you. But I will ask how many months do you have in your calendar year? For me, 6 months from installing 18.10 last month takes us to end-April 2019, while 9 months support takes us to end-July 2019. Hopefully a 18.10.1 release will have appeared by then. I knew I should have waited, but curiosity got the better of me.
I'm not dissing 18.10, it has some nice aspects including Falkon so I don't have to suffer the dreadful failure of Qupzilla to release the memory used by a page when it is closed. But one further comment I must make is that every now and again, probably 3 or 4 times while I've been typing this, there's been a temporary hang on the cursor which returns to life after 15-20 seconds, which may be accountable to LXQt, I don't know. And it seems that synclient touchpadoff=1 loses effect after maybe half an hour.
Oh yes, mu ancestors. It seems they preferred life with the parsimonious Scots than with the selfrighteous and self-interested Gnomes of the time.
@85: I suspect it's you again... thanks for a lot of possibly-useful information, with the promise of help if asked. One point I must take up with you - their has been a massive revolution concerning automobiles, Downsizing, it's called, to conserve resources.
@86: yes indeed. They do have some specialised name but I'm too lazy to look it up. But my coined term was quite clear, wasn't it?
Cheers for now. I haven't had such a good debate since I started computing on an IBM704 in 1965, with only a Fortran 2 manual to guide me through this totally alien universe.
90 • Lubuntu and LXqt (by Jakis on 2018-11-04 11:47:20 GMT from United Kingdom)
I think Lubuntu with Lxqt is just an unnecessary mix of Kwin and Openbox. Lubuntu usually was a simple distro with a DE over Openbox. Now the new Lubuntu has a mixture of Openbox and Kwin, and additionally a Plasma DE. It defeats the idea for what Lubuntu was created at the start.
91 • @88/89 (by frisbee (von Gnomeland) on 2018-11-04 11:52:04 GMT from Switzerland)
Hi Basil,
Look, the things are pretty simple.
If you need a Computer to work with it, then you have the following choices:
1. Linux Mint Cinnamon
2. MX Linux
3. Linux Mint XFCE
4. AntiX Linux
5. Salix XFCE
Special Cases / Evtl. to be considered for some use cases:
1. CentOS / Springdale (PUIAS)
2. Rosa Linux
If you DON'T need a Computer to work with but, you like "toying", you'll take any other except those above.
You can take me serious or not, it's up to you but, I'm working with Computers since 1981, I had or still have many different OS's in my hands, all Apple and Microsoft OS's until this day, OS/2, Plan9, Solaris and most of the Linux distributions from the DistroWatch list. It's my job.
All of those from my list have some advantages and disadvantages and not all of them will work on all computers. Some will have newer SW than the others or some will have some issues here or there. They are all not perfect but, those from my list will get you the least issues over time.
As of KDE Plasma & LXQT, make yourself a favor and stay away from anything QT (as of now -- might be that it'll change one day).
As of Ubuntu 18.10 (you'll never get Ubuntu 18.10.1 by the way, the next release is gonna be 19.04), it's an insult not an OS. No matter where you look, there's a bunch of issues with it. It starts already with black icons on a dark gray background (taskbar & start menu) and it continues on and on.
One can fix it, yes, but basically speaking, one average user would expect to get a finished product and not something that has to be fixed before use. Just exactly the same thing as with a car -- you don't go out and buy yourself a brand-new, shiny car that needs "fixing" before you can use it. The thing with "it's offered to you for free" shouldn't be an excuse for a bad made work.
What you talk about the taskbar settings is a matter of approach. Lubuntu is made to be used "as is", just like Linux Mint Mate etc. If you want some other configuration, you'll have to make your hands "dirty" and do it yourself.
Some distributions are done with a different approach and are made so to offer you preconfigured possibilities to change the taskbar orientation (MX Linux) or even the complete layout (Ubuntu Mate), according to your own preferences.
So, at the end, it's your choice -- either you take some distribution and use it "as is" (or make yourself the "hands dirty" to change it) or you take the distribution which offers you those things OOTB.
The solution for the issue which is "preventing horizontal orientation" of some elements on LXQT is two clicks away. In the taskbar settings and in the clock settings itself, you'll find two check marks (one in each). When unchecked, the orientation will change too. And yes, you still have to make all other changes manual way.
92 • @ 91 (by Jakis on 2018-11-04 12:26:43 GMT from United Kingdom)
"you'll never get Ubuntu 18.10.1 by the way, the next release is gonna be 19.04"
Now that Disco Dingo development is out, all you have to is change the cosmic repo to disco repo.
sudo sed -i 's/cosmic/disco/g' /etc/apt/sources.list
and do sudo apt update and sudo apt upgrade. You are moving with the development, that is, if you are brave.
93 • @ 89 (by Jakis on 2018-11-04 15:02:16 GMT from United Kingdom)
"The impression I had of 18.10 was that it was essentially 18.04 with LXQt underpinnings, instead of LXDE."
Have a look at this forum post, https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/a-trip-from-lubuntu-18-04-to-plasma-19-04/8657
94 • 87 • Ram hungry web browsers will kill old hardware use very soon. (by Peter -- (by Happy user of SparkyLinux LXQt on 2018-11-04 16:07:30 GMT from Brazil)
.
Dear Peter, let me say what I think about it:
`` IMHO, what will make old pc hardware more or less obsolete in near future is not OS support for 32 bit cpus but ram hungry current (and future) generation of mainstream web browsers (Firefox, Opera, Chrome/Chromium, and etc.). ´´
__ Yes. Definitely! Today´s mainstream Web browsers suck. They are simply too bloated.
__ But there´s a fast, really efficient, fully featured and fully configurable alternative one:
__ the `Otter Browser´, made by some developers of the legendary `Opera Browser´.
__ Although being Qt-based, it´s incredibly light on resources. I knew it when trying
__ the `browser installer´ software included in an LXQt version of SparkyLinux.
`` I have an hp probook laptop with 4gb ram and an i5-560 cpu and an onboard non-discrete intel graphics card and it is now struggling to work when Firefox has 10 tabs open (sometimes with less when open tabs use heavy scripting). Thus I will be looking at upgrading to 8 gb of ram soon otherwise this machine will be pretty much useless. ´´
__ I have a Dell Inspiron i15-5566-D10P notebook (Intel Core i3-6006U, 4GB RAM)
__ sold with Ubuntu pre-installed, and it now runs Sparky LXQt very smoothly.
__ Believe it, or not, Otter did a good job even when running on a ridiculous
__ Intel Atom D2500 CPU with only 2GB of DDR3-1066 memory!
`` Lastly, in light of above observation, I don’t see what a “ light Linux distro” will be able to achieve when it comes to internet browsing using a modern browser. ´´
__ By the way, Otter was capable of managing dozens of tabs simultaneously
__ without any instability problem. Unlike many other browsers, it just works
__ even if the Internet connection depends on a modest ADSL modem.
In synthesis: No, you don´t need to upgrade your machine´s RAM. Old hardware
is still perfectly usable! What you need is adopting a decent browser (Otter) and
a decent distro (Sparky, MX, antiX, etc). Never let a bad software get in the way
of a good hardware.
.
95 • @87 • RE: Ram hungry web browsers will kill old hardware use very soon. (by Rev_Don on 2018-11-04 18:22:24 GMT from United States)
"I have an hp probook laptop with 4gb ram and an i5-560 cpu and an onboard non-discrete intel graphics card and it is now struggling to work when Firefox has 10 tabs open (sometimes with less when open tabs use heavy scripting). Thus I will be looking at upgrading to 8 gb of ram soon otherwise this machine will be pretty much useless."
Funny. My main laptop is a Thinkpad T410 with 4 gigs of ram, onboard intel graphics, and an i5-520 cpu (slightly lower than yours). I have absolutely no problems running Firefox with 20+ tabs open. I also have one with a lower spec i3 and numerous C2D laptops with 2 to 4 gigs of ram and and onboard intel graphics. All of them can easily handle 20+ tabs as well.
96 • @ 95, 87 etc (by Pierre on 2018-11-04 18:51:00 GMT from United Kingdom)
I have a Pentium laptop, CPU N3510 with 4 cores and 4 threads, and 8 GB ram. It has no problem of running Plasma DE on Disco Dingo and also running Opera Beta with many tabs open, and GIMP, Writer, Calculator, file manager and so on open. Never had trouble with it. And, it is just about 5 years old, or young.
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