Yay, I mailed him with a few explanations for the OOO installed by default problem, and some other notes about Thunar's network capability, ram usage, etc. Here it is: Hello, I'm reading your article about Xubuntu 9.10 after Cody Somerville forwarded it to the Xubuntu mailing list. Here are a few corrections for it: * Xubuntu's not really designed for low-end or old hardware, it just happens to be slightly (but not very very much) lighter than Ubuntu, so it'll run noticeably better on hardware with 192 to 256MB RAM. Also, it doesn't have compiz activated and XFCE is snappy, so you have a feeling of speed when using it compared to Ubuntu. * OpenOffice.org is installed by default due to a last second bug we didn't have the time to fix: the language packages seem to have been badly packaged and to be pulling the whole OpenOffice.org suite. Yay... * There seems to be a typo or a lacking work around "less than acceptable" in the performance chapter. I didn't get the meaning of the phrase Some extra info you may find useful: * Thunar should get network support for sftp/smb/ftp in XFCE 4.8 (well, if it's ready by then, but I'm pretty optimistic – thanks to Jannis Pohlmann's work for that)! * Xubuntu requires 256 MB to run decently, but with some tweaking and if you disable some daemons in Applications -> Settings -> Session & Boot (or something similar.. :p), then AutoStart tab, and if you disable useless services in Applications -> System -> Services, you can get it to run on 128MB RAM hardware with a fair amount of swap, too. You'll very likely need the AlternateCD to install though, for any machine under 192MB ram. * I would also like to note that all multimedia related questions (codecs by default, flash, etc) have to respect a rule: Ubuntu requires that the software on the CD is free and can be legally shipped to restrictive countries such as the USA and Japan, so it's the reason why they're not installed by default on any Ubuntu CD. Thank you for that review you did. As a contributor to Xubuntu, I appreciated it a lot. :) If you ever wanna write about the Xubuntu development, XFCE or similar topics, feel free to jump in #xubuntu-devel for questions, or to bother knome on <a href="http://irc.freenode.net/" target="_blank">irc.freenode.net</a>. It'd be awesome to have articles to present the developers' work during the development cycle. ;) Cheers, <div class="gmail_quote">2009/11/10 Cody A.W. Somerville <<a href="mailto:cody-somerville@ubuntu.com">cody-somerville@ubuntu.com</a>> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> For those not subscribed to xubuntu-users. Xubuntu 9.10 is getting a lot of good reviews. Good work everyone! <div class="gmail_quote">---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Randy <<a href="mailto:Randy@1800ubuntu.com" target="_blank">Randy@1800ubuntu.com</a>> Date: Mon, Nov 9, 2009 at 8:17 AM Subject: [xubuntu-users] Review of Xubuntu 9.10 To: Xubuntu Help and User Discussions <<a href="mailto:xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com" target="_blank">xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> I have started a new site for Ubuntu (all flavors) for beginners. Just wanted to let you know I posted a postive review of Xubuntu yesterday (<a href="http://1800ubuntu.com/ubuntu-flavors/24-xubuntu-910-review.html" target="_blank">http://1800ubuntu.com/ubuntu-flavors/24-xubuntu-910-review.html</a>), and thank the any of the developers on this list for an excellent distro of Linux. I've been an Ubuntu user for quite some time, and as a result of the review experience I plan to switch to Xubuntu full-time on my main machine as soon as I can get some hardware to keep a copy of Ubuntu running for article reference. Anyway, thanks again, and if any of you guys get a chance to read the review, I'd appreciate your letting me know if it contains any inacuracies. Best regards, -- xubuntu-users mailing list <a href="mailto:xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com" target="_blank">xubuntu-users@lists.ubuntu.com</a> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-users" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-users</a> </div> -- Cody A.W. Somerville Software Systems Release Engineer Foundations Team Custom Engineering Solutions Group Canonical OEM Services Phone: +1-781-850-2087 Cell: +1-506-471-8402 Email: <a href="mailto:cody.somerville@canonical.com" target="_blank">cody.somerville@canonical.com</a> -- xubuntu-devel mailing list <a href="mailto:xubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com">xubuntu-devel@lists.ubuntu.com</a> <a href="https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel" target="_blank">https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel</a> </blockquote></div> -- Steve Dodier Student at École Nationale Supérieure d'Ingénieurs de Bourges Free Software Developer OpenPGP : 1B6B1670