Lubuntu is a Nice Clean Desktop

Lubuntu uses the LXDE desktop, and is an excellent choice for older machines, or for those who are seeking relief from the Unity desktop. I actually prefer LXDE as a desktop over Xfce. Installing LXDE took a little more work than Ubuntu or Xubuntu, but not much.

For those who haven’t tracked the last series of posts, I am using an HP mini netbook that requires the Broadcom wireles driver. Like Xubuntu, I installed Lubuntu on a USB external hard drive from a USB stick. Since Xubuntu and Lubuntu appear as Ubuntu in the Grub menu, I had to do a little editing of the Grub2 configuration files in /etc/grub.d. I document these changes in my article Booting Linux from a USB External Drive.

When I installed Ubuntu and Xubuntu from the Live/Install edition, the required Broadcom driver was part of the package.  When prompted by the Additional Drivers application, I just clicked install, and I was on the Internet. Lubuntu does not contain the driver in the Live/Install package, and requires a connection to Internet to install it. Since I still had to install Mageia, I opted to install without downloading updates. The install went without problems. After installing Mageia, I cabled to Internet and downloaded the driver and all updates.

I like the Lubuntu desktop, because it the clutter of mountable partition icons, as shown below:

Simple, clean, and lightweight are the hallmarks of the LXDE desktop. There are no hidden application launcher menus. While Lubuntu comes with a fairly minimal set of applications, you can download additional applications via the Synaptic Package Manager. I have already downloaded LibreOffice, Rhythmbox, and Shutter.

I also download Google Chrome. While Chromium is vastly improved over previous versions, it still lacks the features of Google Chrome. When I opened WordPress to edit this article, WordPress informed me that I was running an older version of Chrome. Chromium also does not handle Adobe Flash sites. Downloading and installing Google Chrome was easy. While I had problems with the GDebi Package Installer in Linux Mint, it worked fine in Lubuntu. As with many packages, the installer must download any dependency as part of the install, which GDebi did.

I still have issues with all of the latest Debian derivatives. While more services use Upstart, there are still many that use the traditional /etc/rc.d directory. The only way to manage services is from the command line. There is no graphical services manager. I also found in all the Debian derivatives that some man pages are missing. On the surface, Grub2 administration has only small differences between the Debian family of  distros, and other distros, such as Fedora. Under the hood, there are subtle differences, such as the ability to manage the .mod files included in the /boot/grub directory.

I am not going to make Lubuntu my day-to-day distro, on this machine. However, I would highly recommend it, and will use it, on older machines.  Lubuntu is also a good alternative to those who want an alternative to Ubuntu’s Unity desktop.