xubuntu, ubuntu and others.... (rather long message :D)

[daniele favara]

On 4/20/06, Stefan <vstefu at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hi there...
>
>     I have a pretty old computer... Celeron 466Mhz, 128 MB RAM, 8.4 GB HDD,
> Matrox 8 MB AGP 2x card on a 440BX chipset. Not really fast then... but back
> in the day, when it was my primary computer (to be read quite some years
> ago), I did manage to play with Windows 98, Visual C 6.0, and much about
> anything... it did run Windows 2000, and Me at various stages in its life.
> Not to mention Red Hat 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 - rather well I might add.
>
>     Now my (dear) sister is using it - and she mainly wants Firefox and
> Gaim, and perhaps XMMS... And yep, you've guessed it - Linux. Well she
> doesn't really WANT Linux, more like I only give her Linux.
>
>     As such I've surfed distrowatch, and the net (to be read google) to find
> a lightweight distro to use on that aging piece of hardware - which still
> runs well considering.... First stop was Ubuntu 5.10... really slow... till
> I put IceWM on it. Next stop was Ubuntu Dapper Drake, Flight 5 - and Gnome
> 2.14 is really a lot lighter than previous versions were. But, again, IceWM
> proves lighter still so that was nice. Then I thought I might try Ubuntu
> Light, or... wait a sec... xubuntu! So I fetched xubuntu Flight 6, new
> install... and... guess what?
>
>     Really disappointed here guys... and when I say really I mean REALLY...
> Flight 5 with IceWM is faster than xubuntu in all respects... and xubuntu
> somehow doesn;t even have the good and thorough menus ubuntu has... in IceWM

> I simply migrated all the Gnome menu entries... in xubuntu... I don't have
> any. (again, the computer is to be used by a really novice Linux user - my
> sis)

what do you mean ?

>     And why the sluggish performance? Someone over here said he had an
> Athlon at 1+ Ghz... well... that's simply too fast to be able to make a
> succesfull "light" distro. My Celeron 466Mhz stubles... it takes some good
> seconds to simply display the gdm background... and in its day the Matrox
> was really a damn good 2D card... (hell, it can even run Quake 3 / Wolf)
>
>     The bottom line is - regular Ubuntu with IceWM is faster and more
> convenient than xubuntu, so what is the point behind it? and trust me -
> xubuntu IS slow... too slow to enjoy anything...
>
>     I've tried a DSL Live CD - boots faster than xubuntu, and works faster
> than xubuntu - but you might argue that it doesn't really have many things
> on it - true.... but a Knoppix derivate proved really succesful, and so I
> went for "Feather Light Linux", another Knoppix / Debian derivate... this
> one has a (small) 128 MB Live CD and guess what... it works flawlessly! It
> has pretty much everything an average user needs (to be read - my sis)
> including Firefox, Gaim, XMMS, Abiword, and a lot of other things such as
> Rox-filer, and a few window managers to choose from, including IceWM.
>
>     Right now? That Celeron is running Feather Light Linux - installed on
> the HDD, and I am really happy with the results. Considering that... in its
> day that old computer did a very good job of running Red Hat 7.2, I was
> expecting a "light" distro to perform much like the old Red Hat - reliable
> and pretty fast... xubuntu doesn't, but Feather Light does! (and it even has
> synaptic).
>
>     All in all, I wish you good luck with your project, though my personal
> belief is that your project is more or less pointless. Better results can be
> achieved by simply using Ubuntu and IceWM, and really better results can be
> achieved with DSL, or Feather Light Linux.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Stefan Vrabie.
> --
> xubuntu-devel mailing list
> xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
>
>
>


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