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 Channel Futures

Open Source


Lubuntu: Not Just for Lusers

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • February 16, 2010

For a long time, the Ubuntu family has had three members–Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu (sorry Edubuntu; we’re not counting you).  But that may change, with a new project, Lubuntu, vying for official endorsement by Canonical.  Here’s a look at Lubuntu, and thoughts on what its future may hold.

The Lubuntu project, which was established a year ago as a community endeavor, aims to create a lightweight Linux distribution based on Ubuntu.  Towards this end, it uses the LXDE desktop environment in combination with the Openbox window manager to keep the demand on system resources low.

Testing Lubuntu

Hoping to see for myself what Lubuntu was all about, I downloaded a recently released live image of the distribution, based on Lucid Lynx alpha 2, and booted it up in VirtualBox.

Once I got past a buggy boot–which was to be expected, since Lucid Lynx remains far from stable–I was presented with a clean desktop and a relatively attractive interface, given the low hardware requirements that the Lubuntu developers are working with.  Here’s a look:

Lubuntu desktop

I wouldn’t call these icons and color scheme unreasonably gorgeous, and the theme looks a little too techno-geeky for my tastes, but it’s still a lot prettier than Windows XP.

Exploring Lubuntu’s application stack, I discovered that most of the software that comes installed by default diverges from that of regular Ubuntu.  Lubuntu ships with Firefox, Pidgin, Transmission and Synaptic, but the similarities end there.

It uses wicd as its connection manager (although that’s set to be replaced with NetworkManager and nm-applet), Sylpheed for email, Abiword for word processing and SMPlayer for video playback.  A list of the application stack in its entirety is available here.

While Lubuntu’s application stack may be unfamiliar to most users of normal Ubuntu, it nonetheless appears pretty complete, with most basic functionality covered.  Utilities for configuring the system are a little thin, and it lacks a complete office suite (Abiword is great for word processing, but it doesn’t do presentations or spreadsheets like OpenOffice), but it would satisfy the needs of most computer users.  And more software, of course, is only an apt-get away.

Joining the Ubuntu family?

The obvious competitor for Lubuntu’s niche is Xubuntu, an official Ubuntu flavor based on the Xfce desktop environment and designed for less powerful or older hardware.

I’ve always liked Xubuntu, and Xfce in general, but I’ve never been overly impressed with its performance.  It’s a bit lighter than regular Ubuntu and Gnome, but it’s never blown me away with its speed.  When I need a truly lightweight system for use on old hardware, I go with (now apparently defunct) Flubuntu, which uses Fluxbox for its desktop environment.

But there’s hope that Lubuntu will deliver where Xubuntu has failed by providing a truly lightweight version of Ubuntu.  Linux Magazine found last fall that Lubuntu uses only about half as much memory as Xubuntu when installed to hard disk.  That’s a big improvement.

Moreover, I was able to get Lubuntu to boot–into the live environment, no less–and run reliably with as few as 128 megabytes of RAM allocated in VirtualBox.  That’s also encouraging.

The bottom line

A lot of work remains to be done on Lubuntu to make it stable and bring it up to speed with the other Ubuntu flavors.  But so far, it’s looking very impressive and may finally provide the truly modern and functional, yet lightweight, distribution that many Ubuntu users have been looking for for years.

And one last thought: the developers should think of a name that smacks less of “luser”…

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27 comments

  1. Avatar Christer Edwards February 16, 2010 @ 1:47 pm
    Reply

    I don’t understand this fascination with Lxde. I keep seeing talk about it, but anytime I’ve tried it I’m surprised at how almost Windows 3.1 it looks. Poor icons and blocky interface are not appealing to me at all.

  2. Avatar Daniel Añez Scott February 16, 2010 @ 1:53 pm
    Reply

    I’ve used xubuntu before, and quit using it because it after a few appeareance tweaks it leeched more ram than ubuntu without its compiz effects. So for me it is an useless distro, as xfce has less to offer than gnome.

    And i’ve tried lxde too so I know it won’t dissappoint us 🙂

  3. Avatar Leo February 16, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
    Reply

    I always keep a light window manager in my Kubuntu installs just in case something brakes, especially when I run the development version in a test partition, like I am doing now with Lucid.

    I love Lubuntu for that. It is a very light install (lubuntu-desktop only installs a few packages), it runs incredibly fast, and it integrates quite well with the KDE applications.

    I think it’s a nice safeguard, especially for new users, to have a light alternative in case things go south.

    Of course, it seems like a nice light Desktop for very low spec’ed machines (old laptops, old desktops, MID’s, UMPC’s, and I agree, it could be a lot more professional looking with just a little work in the art side …

  4. Avatar Barista Uno February 16, 2010 @ 2:44 pm
    Reply

    I would like to see how Lucid-based Lubuntu will shape up. I worry that the use of grub2 will detract from the speed and beauty of lxde. Grub2 just isn’t mature yet.

    I am currently using the lxde netbook edition of Mandriva 2010 on my netbook. This is a fine German re-make of what is arguably one of the best mainstream desktop Linux systems today. For my desktop, I also use Mandriva as my main production platform – with good old gnome of course.

  5. Avatar Paul Bailey February 16, 2010 @ 3:30 pm
    Reply

    I’ve always thought this distro was great for netbooks too since it is so lightweight and fast.

  6. Avatar Leo February 16, 2010 @ 3:54 pm
    Reply

    @Paul, I agree, you just to make it prettier than in that screenshot. but folks in a netbook arguably only lunch a few apps: Skpe, a Web Browser, maybe a Media Player, so having something really snappy just for that can be very rewarding 🙂

  7. Avatar Michael February 16, 2010 @ 6:32 pm
    Reply

    I have thought, since XFCE 4.6 (and even the later 4.4.x) builds, that XFCE seems to have lost its way a bit in trying to “compete” with Gnome and KDE. Add to this that the Xubuntu team continually adds “features” to their default packages, and I begin to wonder whether anyone truly wants a lightweight window manager. Or, at the least, a lightweight experience.

    Sure, LXDE and Lubuntu will provide the lightweight many are looking for on their older hardware. But, let’s face it… it doesn’t really look good or “cool”.

    Personally, I think Xubuntu should cede the lightweight title to Lubuntu (though there are others, Lubuntu is IMO the most user-friendly and complete). Xubuntu has not been lightweight since 8.04.

  8. Avatar Leo February 16, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
    Reply

    @Michael: I think there is a limit of course as to how cool it can be made look, but there is a lot of room for easy improvements I think.

    Regarding Xubuntu, I agree, it’s not really light anymore, though it seems like Debian’s XFCE is much lighter:
    http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20090427#feature

  9. Avatar adam February 17, 2010 @ 12:19 am
    Reply

    I think they should have looked into crunchbang linux “http://crunchbanglinux.org/” myself. It seems a much cleaner ubuntu derivative than lubuntu. I think that the lxde is just garbage, if you want a light, fast ubuntu derivative then crunchbang linux is for you.

  10. Avatar Shane February 17, 2010 @ 2:46 am
    Reply

    Personally for lightweight ubuntu I cannot go past Crunchbang. I have it running on an old acer tablet with 256mb ram and it works a treat. Can even do youtube quite reasonably….just need to get the low battery notification working now.

  11. Avatar darkhole February 17, 2010 @ 4:08 am
    Reply

    Please Christopher, check this: https://lists.launchpad.net/lubuntu-desktop/msg00606.html

    Here is a new image, and have a really big amount of changes, you can download from here:
    http://people.ubuntu.com/~gilir/lubuntu-lucid-20100215.iso

  12. Avatar Lubuntu, más ligera que Xubuntu | MuyLinux February 17, 2010 @ 8:13 am
    Reply

    […] comentan en el artículo de WorksWithU, en el que hacen un breve análisis de Lubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala, una edición que comparte algunos […]

  13. Avatar Leo February 17, 2010 @ 1:39 pm
    Reply

    @Adam and Shane. I am personally reluctant to run projects that seem to be a one-geek trick, like #! seems to be (please correct me if I am wrong). The fact that I can just install lubuntu-desktop from ubuntu makes me feel a lot more confident of using this moving forward. I can even do a minimal net-install, get a barebone console ubuntu, and add lubuntu-desktop. I think there is a lot of value in that. I wish #! had gone that way!

  14. Avatar Daeng Bo February 17, 2010 @ 1:55 pm
    Reply

    LXDE is a nice, small, effective desktop for low-spec’ed equipment. I’ve run it on several Win2000-era laptops with 64-128MB RAM, and it chugs along nicely. Heavier applications have to be replaced with ones that have fewer bells and whistles, but you can get a surprisingly functional, modern desktop on hardware that won’t run WinXPSP3 due to low resources.

    You can’t complain about that, can you?

  15. Avatar Leo February 17, 2010 @ 5:08 pm
    Reply

    Talking of hardware, the simplest, most rewarding hardware upgrade for these 10 year old machines is buying some cheap ram (assuming you can find it).

  16. Avatar Links 17/2/2010: Calculate Linux 10.2 Released, SimplyMEPIS February 17, 2010 @ 8:30 pm
    Reply

    […] Lubuntu: Not Just for Lusers For a long time, the Ubuntu family has had three members–Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu (sorry Edubuntu; we’re not counting you). But that may change, with a new project, Lubuntu, vying for official endorsement by Canonical. Here’s a look at Lubuntu, and thoughts on what its future may hold. […]

  17. Avatar Rafael Laguna February 18, 2010 @ 11:02 am
    Reply

    Don’t care , you’ll get a nice surprise in artwork on the next Alpha (I know because I’m a Lubuntu team member).

  18. Avatar snkiz February 18, 2010 @ 2:12 pm
    Reply

    I tried lxde when it first popped up, but stopped using it due to a bug in recognizing file types in pcmanfm. (That is still there a year latter in 9.10! But not in source snapshots any more thankfully.) Over all lxde is quite capable, and it can be made to look better. However the slow movement on something as critical as the filemanager is worrisome.

  19. Avatar Leo February 18, 2010 @ 5:35 pm
    Reply

    @Rafael: excellent, do I just need to upgrade my Lucid to rejoice, then? I have lubuntu-desktop installed

    Thanks for the good news 🙂

  20. Avatar Leo February 19, 2010 @ 8:56 am
    Reply

    I just tried in Lucid, it does look nicer! There is also a lubuntu-netbook login session, with a different theme (not sure if there other differences, maybe so)

  21. Avatar Leo February 19, 2010 @ 10:58 am
    Reply

    I think we should also mention Enlightenment

    It will now provide the Ubuntu interface for ARM:
    http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_itemamp;px=Nzk5Mw

    It has also been recently funded by Samsung, because it scales well all the way down to a smartphone. I think it is more mature than lxde and very functional. Among other things they have a built in profiler so they can check for regressions in performance every time they modify their code. Neat!

  22. Avatar Artemis3 February 21, 2010 @ 7:38 am
    Reply

    Xubuntu is not lightweight not because of XFCE but because of the myriad of gnome apps in comes with, which end loading gnome libs eating your memory in the end.

    I hope Lubuntu avoids falling this trap again.

    As for light apps there is stuff like Midori for Browsing, Gnumeric for spreadsheets, SLIM for logging in, etc.

    I’m also interested in the e17 usage for Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

  23. Avatar Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter #181 | 48da Tech News February 23, 2010 @ 7:28 am
    Reply

    […] http://www.workswithu.com/2010/02/16/lubuntu-not-just-for-lusers/ […]

  24. Avatar Rodnox February 24, 2010 @ 10:39 pm
    Reply

    Aehm …. Canonical officially calles 4 OS their own.
    Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu and Ubuntu-Studio.

    So now it’s 5

  25. Avatar Leon March 18, 2010 @ 3:41 pm
    Reply

    I’m a satisfied Xubuntu user (I’ve been using it for right about a year now), but I’ve had my eye on Lubuntu for a little while. Once it goes official distro I’ll definitely have to check it out–but in any case, Lubuntu will have to work better for me than Xubuntu before I’ll consider switching. Lightweight apps are a good and wonderful thing, but if they don’t provide me the functionality I’m used to getting from the XFCE flavor, Lubuntu won’t quite cut it.

  26. Avatar Barista Uno September 19, 2010 @ 10:32 am
    Reply

    Some folks may be turned off by the sheer leanness of Lubuntu 10.04, what with the meagre collection of installed apps. I myself had to install a number of my favourite apps including openoffice, wine, VLC nd xpad but it didn’t take a Herculean effort to do so. The bottom-line is that Lubuntu is fast, stable and based on the LTS Ubuntu edition. IMHO, it is much better than Peppermint OS.

  27. Avatar Zachary Haynes October 6, 2010 @ 2:12 am
    Reply

    I have some old laptops that xubuntu has worked “ok” on, but I always revert back to xp because the ease of setup outweighs the VERY SMALL increase in speed. I recently installed ubuntu on my new laptop via virtualbox because ktechlab lets me save and/or diagrams to graphics for school. I noticed that Lubuntu is actually shown in symantic, so I thought i would give it a whirl.

    I know I have gnome installed too, but adding Lubuntu to an existing gnome install is still EXTREMELY FAST, even working in virtualbox. I am very impressed, and I may decide to revisit this on some of my older hardware.

    I may be mistaken, but even by installing this way, you get the speed because of the low ram use of lxde, and the reliability of the extra gnome packages. I think it’s a win/win!

    And to the guy that was unimpressed with all the hype of lxde… For the sucky win users like myself that can’t configure our way out of a paper bag… Lxde is simple, has a win feel, runs fast on pos hardware AND having all of the Ubuntu repository entries available doesn’t hurt either

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