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View Full Version : [ubuntu] LXDE worth installing?



Robbyx
April 28th, 2010, 09:59 PM
The "Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment" is an extremely fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. Maintained by an international community of developers, it comes with a beautiful interface, multi-language support, standard keyboard short cuts and additional features like tabbed file browsing. LXDE uses less CPU and less RAM than other environments. It is especially designed for cloud computers with low hardware specifications, such as, netbooks, mobile devices (e.g. MIDs) or older computers. LXDE can be installed with many Linux distributions including Ubuntu, Debian and Fedora. It is the standard for Knoppix and lubuntu. LXDE also runs with OpenSolaris and BSD. LXDE provides a fast desktop experience; connecting easily with applications in the cloud. LXDE supports a wealth of programs that can be installed locally with Linux systems. The source code of LXDE is licensed partly under the terms of the the General Public License and partly under the LGPL.

I have a dual core processor but I am noticing that computer is often lagging. I think it has too much going on in the background. So would I gain from trying out lxde? I use a dual nvidia screen and so would want to keep the two screen option.

RTrev
April 29th, 2010, 01:25 AM
I have a dual-core AMD 3800+ that works just fine with the full Ubuntu, but it just feels snappier and quicker with Lubuntu and the lightweight apps.

But having said that, I had trouble with the Nvidia driver needed (I believe) for your dual monitor setup. That might be a show-stopper right there. Or it may be that someone else with more smarts could easily get it working. I installed it via Synaptic, since the Hardware Drivers option found nothing. On the same machine, the Nvidia-current works fine with Ubuntu.

I installed that same driver under LXDE, but couldn't get it working. Running nvidia-settings just reported that I didn't appear to be running an nvidia driver.

Maybe someone else will report in, and explain how to do this. Or maybe you already know.

Aside from that, there are some bugs.. to be expected.. but I run it as my daily driver. when I log in to the full Gnome or KDE desktops, it feels heavy and sluggish by comparison. I'm looking forward to 10.10 when hopefully Canonical will take Lubuntu under it's wing officially and put some resources into really making this shine. It's not going to take much work, I don't think. It's very close...

revidnus
April 29th, 2010, 03:05 AM
LXDE is just what it says ... very light wait. I have it installed on an older Gateway that had Win 95 on it. It runs really well and I have had no problems at all. You may want to try xbuntu first though. I installed that flavor on another computer and it runs a lot faster than the same computer with windows on it.
Good Luck!

Robbyx
April 29th, 2010, 10:43 PM
Thanks. I needed that guidance. I will leave LXDE alone until the wrinkles have been ironed out.

Objekt
April 29th, 2010, 10:50 PM
Crunchbang Linux is super duper lightweight. Seems to run faster than Xubuntu 9.10 w/XFCE 4, actually. I'm using Crunchbang 9.04.1 on a really old laptop, and it's quite responsive. Crunchbang runs better than the Windows XP the machine shipped with. By "old" I mean "256 MB RAM and a 1.0 GHz AMD Duron processor."

Crunchbang uses the Openbox window manager, for what it's worth.

If you're having trouble with system responsiveness, you might also try the realtime Linux kernel, currently version 2.6.31-9-rt. It solved a problem I was having with slight video lag in some games.

kerry_s
April 30th, 2010, 12:04 AM
Thanks. I needed that guidance. I will leave LXDE alone until the wrinkles have been ironed out.

grab lubuntu & try it for yourself, like ubuntu it can run from cd or usb with out touching your system.
http://people.ubuntu.com/~gilir/lubuntu-lucid-beta3.iso