Thoughts on Sidux Xfce

[exploder]

I have been looking at Sidux Xfce for about a week now, it has really made an impression on me. Here are some of the things I liked about Sidux Xfce.

Sidux Xfce is fast, boot time, application launch and everything is just unbelievably fast!

The Sidux kernel, these guys did an awesome job in building the kernel! There are little things for example; if you use a single core processor then one penguin is displayed at the top of the screen and if you use a duel core processor then two penguins are displayed.I actually did not mind that the system booted in verbose mode.

The artwork used in Sidux Xfce was very consistent and attractive. The GDM theme was completely different from any I had used. The GDM theme had a modern look without being overdone. You really have to see it to appreciate it. The desktop wallpaper has a nice look to it, the choice of color, the branding, a great looking wallpaper that is not distracting.The default theme has a nice clean look to it and it looked perfect with the rest of the default artwork. These guys did an outstanding job with the default artwork!

The default set of applications is nice but they did forget to include a mail client and screensavers. I was very impressed with the multimedia capabilities being that Sidux includes only FOSS packages. An example would be playing ShoutCast. MP3 playback is supported and GXine turns out to be an excellent choice of players! GXine has a clean look that suits the system well and the way it displays what is playing and the visualizations worked perfectly. GXine also proved to be a great choice for podcasts as well.

Sidux Xfce was not memory hungry at all and could probably be tweaked depending on what is needed at start up.

I was very impressed with what the Sidux Team has done with Xfce, aside from the lack of screensavers and mail client. These packages can easily be installed with Apt and is really not much of a problem.

I play with a lot of different distributions but this one stood out in my mind because of it's overall quality. I would recommend Sidux to people that want a fast system and have prior experience with Linux.

What are your thoughts on Sidux Xfce?

[sabbathpriest]

I am using Sidux but with KDE, I am very impressed too. I had used Kubuntu until last week when I built a new box with a $35.00 Asus A8V-X motherboard to take advantage of an AMD Athlon 64 4000+ 2.4GHz I got for small change. This mobo has some hardware issue that brings up a Busybox prompt after installing K/Ubuntu to HDD. I installed Sidux thinking that I'd avoid that problem, but it was the same. Finally I figured out how to fix it, but I am so pleased with Sidux that I will keep it.

[Antman]

sidux (note the lowercase 's') is a VERY nice distro. I have used the KDE lite version, KDE Full and XFCE versions.
All versions of sidux are fast, and very good on resources. I HIGHLY recommend that everyone try it.

:guitar:

[DJiNN]

For any sidux fans out there it also may be worth trying an LXDE version (http://cap.gediam.de/index-en.htm).... Amazingly fast and really nice. Well worth a look. :)

[Vorian Grey]

sidux is awesome in all flavors. I can hardily recommend it to anyone, regardless of their Linux experience level. The smxi script makes updating a breeze.

[basenvironment]

I like the debian parts of sidux....do not care for some of the sidux parts. They do have some nice artwork though.

[Vorian Grey]

I like the debian parts of sidux....do not care for some of the sidux parts.

not to put you on the spot, but what sidux parts do you not like?

[basenvironment]

didnt say 'not like' I said 'do not care for' ;)

killing X to upgrade is silly, and I dont need ceni or smxi and I wish regular grub was a option instead of only grub-gfx, and some of the comments that are made about debian are uncalled for IMO, and in general how only 'part' of debian is supportted and if you use some tool/utility that is avialable in debian you could possibly move yourself into the dreaded sidux-does-not-support-this category...

Just seems like a narrow subset of debian to me and I rather have the whole thing so overall I just do not need/want sidux. I guess it is fine for those that do want a subset or wants everything done for them and likes it being done and not having as much of a choice in the matter.

I prefer to hit the salad bar and make my own rather than have soemone create a salad for me. They make a good salad but I simply prefer to make my own and not have things I dont want or not have things I do want.

[Vorian Grey]

I'm glad we have lots of choices in Linux so everyone can have what they want. :)

[Antman]

i'm glad we have lots of choices in linux so everyone can have what they want. :)
+1

[crimesaucer]

I've never used "real" debian or sidux, just ubuntu, xubuntu, and Archlinux..... but if I were to do back to the debian distros, I would use sidux.

[Antman]

i've never used "real" debian or sidux, just ubuntu, xubuntu, and archlinux..... But if i were to do back to the debian distros, i would use sidux.
\\:d/

[crimesaucer]

\\:d/

oops.....


but if I were to "GO" back to the debian distros, I would use sidux.


....or I would at least install it to see if it's as fast as I've heard.

[Antman]

oops.....


but if I were to "GO" back to the debian distros, I would use sidux.
....or I would at least install it to see if it's as fast as I've heard.
Yes, it's pretty fast. So far, of the full distros I have tried (not including the mini's like puppy and such), only Arch seems a little faster.

[basenvironment]

If any distro takes longer than 1 minute to get my desktop loaded then it immediately gets wiped. Okay, after I tweak THEN I expect less than one minute and I actually expect it to be no more than 40 seconds. Sidux has no problem, neither does debian, ubuntu requires a lot of tweaking but manages just fine afterwards.

[Antman]

If any distro takes longer than 1 minute to get my desktop loaded then it immediately gets wiped. Okay, after I tweak THEN I expect less than one minute and I actually expect it to be no more than 40 seconds. Sidux has no problem, neither does debian, ubuntu requires a lot of tweaking but manages just fine afterwards.
Yeah on my desktop, the sidux KDE full version boots to the login screen in 24sec.:guitar:

[basenvironment]

sounds like it is debian fast :)

21sec is about my fastest debian time
http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7734/bootchart7ua2.png

[TheSlipstream]

Downloading Xfce iso. How is it on stability? Sid is honestly suicide, your system will break. Are the packages as new as the usual Unstable ones?

[Antman]

Downloading Xfce iso. How is it on stability? Sid is honestly suicide, your system will break. Are the packages as new as the usual Unstable ones?
If you want a rock use Slackware, Debian stable, CentOS or BSD. But sidux has a history of being more stable than Ubuntu's normal 6 month releases (at least on my hardware).

Just be sure to follow the DU warnings on their forum. Normally though I just use the SMXI script to aid in system upgrades since it does a lot of the work for you (putting troubled packages on hold and such).

[Majorix]

I tried to install it a few weeks ago. The install got stuck at some point and obviously it rendered the PC non-bootable. I would say they rushed the installer a bit, other than that the idea seemed good.

[Stan_1936]

...sidux has a history of being more stable than Ubuntu's normal 6 month releases (at least on my hardware)......

Really? XFCE or KDE?

[Antman]

Really? XFCE or KDE?
This is MY experience. Others may vary.
I use KDE mainly with sidux.
The XFCE sidux version has replaced Fedora on my 1gig usbflash stick.:KS

[Vorian Grey]

sidux is more stable than almost all stable distros on my computer. :D

[Antman]

This is MY experience. Others may vary.
I use KDE mainly with sidux.
The XFCE sidux version has replaced Fedora on my 1gig usbflash stick.:KS
sidux XFCE has come to the rescue again for me. I was working on a client's corrupted WinXP desktop that had only 198mb of ram. At first I tried to boot puppy linux4.0 with no luck, than I just booted from my sidux XFCE usb flash, copied her data over, reinstalled WinXP, restored her data and I was done.
Even with just 198mb of ram, sidux XFCE was working like a champ.:guitar: