Xubuntu 20.04 LTS

[Jason]

I've tried so many distros lately. Since I needed to do a reinstall I decided to give other distros a try. I needed something light (running a Toshiba ultra-light with an i3 dual-core at 1.4 GHz with 4 GB of RAM running on an SSD. Onboard graphics. I was hoping to give Plasma a try since it's supposed to be as light as Xfce. And I needed some base, including a couple of proprietary apps on it.

I was originally using Linux Lite 5.1 which I upgraded to the most recent version. You can read about that here.

From that, I transitioned to Mageia. It wasn't worth writing about as my experience was awful. But I did install multiple DEs to choose from so maybe it was just asking too much. However, the old Linux Mandrake/Mandriva used to handle having multiple desktop environments (DEs) fine. One of them was Plasma.

From there I went to using the Fedora 33 LXDE re-spin. You can find that story elsewhere on this board. It worked fine but too vanilla.

Then I gave Zorin 5.3 Lite a try which you read about here. I loved the look but it kept freezing.

Switched to Lubuntu 21.04. Nothing special there but the light desktop (LXqt) was kind of weird. The apps in it lacked coherence and the DE features and file manager were lacking.

Finally, I settle on Xubuntu deciding on the most recent LTS so I wasn't forced into any upgrades for a long while. I'm good until 2023. Thats' what I'm using now and I like it well enough. It has the Xfce (such is its name) DE and it's smooth. While I've had some apps freeze, I can't recall a single freeze of the desktop interface. The apps are coherent and I can drag windows to the side (or top or bottom) so that two programs each take up half the screen (or a quarter) if I so like. Having only one monitor right now, that's handy. It's comfortable to use, even looks good for Xfce. And it reminds me of Linux Lite minus some of the extras. I was surprised how much of the items in settings were actually from Xfce and not the Linux Lite creators.

Been using it for 3-4 weeks I think. And I'll probably keep it. It just works. It isn't a beauty but I haven't had any problems with it. So until I have a better computer (have to get my old main one fixed), I will stick with this light distribution that could and does.

[fox]

So why did you stop using Linux Lite? I went back to your review and it seemed to be working well for you.

[Jason]

I needed to do a reinstall because I started having odd errors creeping up. For example, the Brave browser that I used started forgetting that I was logged into a site when I'd start it again. The cookies that preserved this logged-in status were still there but it wasn't reading for some reason. I tried various suggested fixes from the Brave community support but nothing worked. I even tried re-installing Brave and deleting configuration files before reinstall. There were some other problems I don't recall. I figured it might have something to do with my home directory and decided on a fresh install to fix that as it wasn't on a separate partition.

I could have made a new user and copied my own files to it but I liked the idea of a fresh start, this time putting the root and home on different partitions. Since I was doing that, I thought I might try another distro. I made a list of a few light distros to try, hoping it'd be the first or second one. But it didn't work out that way. I guess my distro-hopping days aren't quite over. I think I just have to try new things after becoming too familiar with the existing ones.

All in all, I spent too much time doing this but at least I know what sucks. I still think Linux Lite is great for anybody to use, particularly for beginners or those with old computers.

[fox]

Is it possible that your troubles are due to an underlying hardware failure; maybe something like power supply, RAM or SSD? I don't recall having any of the problems that you are having on this laptop before I sold it to you, and I certainly don't remember it being slow. Granted that it was only a year old or so when I sold it.

[ssfc72]

I am thinking the same thing, about a hardware issue.
An Intel I3 cpu with that amount of ram and an ssd, should not be slow.

I have a old notebook computer with an Intel N series (low specs) cpu and it runs Mint just fine.

[buster]

Jason: " I still think Linux Lite is great for anybody to use, particularly for beginners or those with old computers."

I agree. But I think it should be put on two partitions: / and /home, because every two years in its cycle a fresh install is needed. I think a carefully done install could keep the /home partition untouched. I really liked Lite on a hd, but it doesn't serve my needs now because of a drag/drop issue with host in virtual. And that applies to all xfce distros.

I am now guessing, and politely disagreeing, but when the dust clears I think you'll find the hardware is fine. Brave is a candidate. To me it sounds like software, somewhere in the system. (Remember the song 'There's software, out there, somewhere for me'? What a beautiful melody!)

[Jason]

I suppose I wasn't clear enough because everyone is making suggestions that don't really apply now. Everything is working great now with Xubuntu and has been a few weeks. So I can't really say what the culprit was but a new install fixed it. RAM was tested and was fine. I can't speak to other components. But most of the time problems are software-related. Except when they're not. I was more just letting members know what distros I tried before settling on Xubuntu and that Xubuntu is still pretty good. I used it a long time ago for a while when I had an ever slower and older system not quite from Unix epoch time but close to it.

Fox: Well, I'd hope that if you recalled issues before then that you wouldn't have sold it to me. But it doesn't really mean anything that you didn't notice issues at the time; it's been a long time since then. I'm also working it pretty hard with it being the system I'm using all the time (no, not 24 hours a day, Buster!).

Buster: I mentioned that when I did the install this time I put home and the root on separate partitions. And Brave is working fine now. And was working fine long before. So it wasn't the browser itself although something evil was afoot with that install. Probably gremlins.

Bill: Some DEs (and distros) run slow, not because of a slow processor or an HDD but because of having low-end onboard video so that's a consideration as well. Hardware that uses onboard video still needs RAM and since it doesn't have any of its own, it shares the system RAM meaning a 4 GB system likely has only 3.5 GB available, maybe less depending on what the video can "borrow".

Thanks for the input guys but it wasn't a tech support request. Everything is A-OK right now. Ask me tomorrow though!

[Jason]

One other thought - slow is relative. And it's not just what hardware they're used to. It's how they use that hardware. Normally, I have 6-8 browser tabs open, SpiderOak One Backup, Tutanota email, Timeshift, a terminal or two, a file manager and often an editor. Others likely use their system differently. So even a very old system will run fine if you only open one program at a time and a light OS. Plenty of RAM and an SSD helps, especially the RAM. I checked and the graphics subsystem can use up to 1.5 GB of RAM. That's a lot of RAM for a 4 GB system! Regardless, I can only tell you my experience which is quite subjective. YMMV. That reminds me of another post I'm going to do to get members talking.