Lubuntu: the way forward for aging hardware

[ZombieApocalypse]

Have just made the switch from Kubuntu to Lubuntu and I'm very impressed with the increase in performance.

I've been running Kubuntu on my aging laptop (HP xe4500 circa 2003) since version 7.04. I love Kubuntu - it's a great, full featured desktop environment that looks fab (and better with each version). It used to run like a dream, but with each upgrade performance has noticeably decreased. Obviously I have tweaked the settings, startup programmes and Xorg.conf for performance gains.

Version 11.04 was the final straw. The desktop environment had become sluggish to the point of extreme frustration, internet video unwatchable and my games emulators (Dosbox and UAE) unusable.

Lubuntu, basically a stripped down gnome desktop, works like a dream. Not as pretty or as featured as gnome or KDE, but the desktop feels responsive, I get smooth internet video playback and my emulators work with decent/expected frame rates. What a difference the change made!

I would highly recommend Lubuntu to anyone experiencing poor performance with either Ubuntu or Kubuntu.

[cannonfodder]

There's no denying that Lubuntu is a great option for older computers but as a 'maximalist' I use it to get the most out of any machine.

The GNOME and KDE examples of distros like Ubuntu and Fedora are great for out of the box usability but the trade-off is bloat.

Not everyone wants or needs transparency, drop shadows, floating cubes, bluetooth support, etc.

I want a computer to go on line, get the latest news, weather, read and write email, read linux-centric sites, download and listen to music, download and watch movies.

Lubuntu, while not as pretty as GNOME, granted, allows me to do that without a lot of unwanted extra overhead.

Although, I have to say that the combination of the Openbox and GTK Unified themes rivals almost any Metacity + GTK themes, except maybe for Elementary or Bisigi's 'Step into Freedom'.

That said, a Debian net-install of GNOME-core is just as light if not lighter than Lubuntu. No lie.