Installing on an old Eee PC 900

[Liam Proven]

On 28 October 2012 18:03, Johnny Rosenberg <gurus.knugum at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2012/10/28 Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com>:
>> On 27 October 2012 13:51, Johnny Rosenberg <gurus.knugum at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> What is the lightest/fastest Debian based Gnome distribution out there?
>>
>> Debian.
>>
>>> I want Gnome 3 but no Gnome shell.
>>
>> You can't, as others have said. The default shell for GNOME 3 is GNOME
>> Shell. The 2-panel layout is only available in Fallback Mode, for 2D
>> graphics users. You can't install it without GNOME Shell, AFAIK.
>>
>> If you want a classic 2-panel GNOME-style desktop, try Maté. If you
>> want Ubuntu with Maté, try NotaLinux. Warning: it's old code, much of
>> it superseded, with only a few developers. It might not be all that
>> secure and its future is uncertain.
>>
>> If you want something lighter-weight with a 2-panel layout, try XFCE.
>> It is the default desktop in Debian 6, I believe.
>>
>> Me, I would probably put Lubuntu on that spec of machine. It's what I
>> run on my 2004 IBM Thinkpad X31 and I like it.
>
> I have Lubuntu on it right now. It sucks badly in many aspects, I
> don't really have time to go through all that right now, sorry.

Well, if you don't have time to tell us what's wrong with it, then we
don't have time to help you to fix the problems or guide you toward
something better. :¬P

But to answer your question: no, you can't have Debian with GNOME 3
without GNOME Shell, and GNOME 3 is a lot bigger, slower and heavier
than LXDE and /anything/ with GNOME 3 on it, in any form, will take
more RAM, be slower to start and less responsive than Lubuntu is.
Ditto XFCE, ditto Maté.

There is not much out there that is lighter and faster than Lubuntu.
Things that are:
* PuppyLinux (runs as root all the time, so massively insecure & dangerous)
* DamnSmallLinux (obsolete as the creator & the maintainer fell out
and the former has been unable to keep it updated on his own)
* Crunchbang (worth a look, but does not have a "desktop" as such)
* Maybe possibly VectorLinux if you use IceWM or something

-- 
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