Lubuntu the best netbook OS, period?

[TeamRocket1233c]

Hey there! I'm wondering, is Lubuntu the best OS for netbooks, period? I've been considering getting myself a netbook off and on for a while now, and I've read that Lubuntu's very good and very fast on netbooks, but I'm wondering if there's any other Linux distro that's better.

Also wondering if there's any other OS that's better for netbooks as well, like any BSD distro, for example.

[wolfen69]

What do you mean by better? All OS's essentially do the same things. Any lightweight distro can be considered good for a netbook. But I'm kind of partial to Lubuntu.

[BigSilly]

I tend to think if it runs well on our Eee 701, then it'll run well on anything. :D

Lubuntu is really impressive on the Eee. Before that we had Crunchbang which was similarly impressive. Both are supremely light and fast for low powered netbooks imho.

[Nytram]

Arch + Gnome Shell work really well on my modest netbook (eee 1005.) It looks great too.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Cool. Any lightweight Linux might be a better netbook option than BSD, actually. Although Lubuntu seems like it'd be easier to use than Crunchbang on a small PC like that, and it is Ubuntu, so you don't gotta worry 'bout using a different repository for the OS.

Whereas Crunchbang and Kubuntu seem like they'd be better on a full-blown laptop, and full-blown Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, or PC-BSD would be better on a desktop.

[Paddy Landau]

It depends on your personal preferences and the strength of the netbook.

Lubuntu is fast on low-hardware computers, so you may prefer it.

[MG&TL]

I looked at the install process for BSD and fainted...

Lubuntu is, for me, awesome. But that's choice for you. See also mint lxde, arch with lxde, peppermint OS , anything else with LXDE, Puppy linux. And for netbooks with small screens, but slightly better processors, I reccommend KDE's netbook interface, it is quite intuitive. And you can actually see what you are doing.

Although interestingly, Unity was really designed for netbooks, tablets etc. But I've never seen it run on a netbook yet.

[kvvv]

I'm wondering if there's any other Linux distro that's better.

The choice of desktop environment / window manager is more relevant than the distro itself, for a netbook. Keeping this in mind, you should take a look at Sabayon E17 spin too.

[TeamRocket1233c]

I looked at the install process for BSD and fainted...

Lubuntu is, for me, awesome. But that's choice for you. See also mint lxde, arch with lxde, peppermint OS , anything else with LXDE, Puppy linux. And for netbooks with small screens, but slightly better processors, I reccommend KDE's netbook interface, it is quite intuitive. And you can actually see what you are doing.

Although interestingly, Unity was really designed for netbooks, tablets etc. But I've never seen it run on a netbook yet.

You're thinking of the BSD's that require a text installer, like FreeBSD for example. PC-BSD uses a graphical installer, that BSD's whole point of existence is to have UNIX for the average PC user. FreeBSD (and OpenBSD) are aimed more towards the server scene, while PC-BSD's aimed more towards the desktop scene.

And Puppy wouldn't be a bad netbook choice either, although that Linux is aimed more towards ancient hardware (Pentium II-era)

And I've read that Unity wasn't supposed to be all that great. Also, if you got the time, the stones, and the UNIX experience (as it requires you to compile pretty much everything in order to get it set up), OpenBSD wouldn't be bad for a netbook either.

[kvvv]

And Puppy wouldn't be a bad netbook choice either, although that Linux is aimed more towards ancient hardware (Pentium II-era)

Puppys installation is convoluted, last I saw. I would rather install PC-BSD or hell even Arch, over Puppy.

[Paddy Landau]

Puppys installation is convoluted, last I saw. I would rather install PC-BSD or hell even Arch, over Puppy.
When I last used Puppy, I found it easy to install. But it's terribly basic, so I'd go with Lubuntu because at least it has support on these forums.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Puppys installation is convoluted, last I saw. I would rather install PC-BSD or hell even Arch, over Puppy.

OpenBSD's supposed to be tougher to set-up than any of those. After installation, a lot of heavy compilation is necessary to get it set up the way you want.

[MG&TL]

I used freeBSD-yeah looked at PC-BSD, more appealing. Not sure I can do without apt- and stuff though.

Pupp's install is fine, apart from installing a bootloader. Better for live systems, I think.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Hmm...

[collisionystm]

Hey there! I'm wondering, is Lubuntu the best OS for netbooks, period? I've been considering getting myself a netbook off and on for a while now, and I've read that Lubuntu's very good and very fast on netbooks, but I'm wondering if there's any other Linux distro that's better.

Also wondering if there's any other OS that's better for netbooks as well, like any BSD distro, for example.


JoliOS

http://www.jolicloud.com/download

Based on Ubuntu.

[TeamRocket1233c]

There is that too.

[kvvv]

^ They have stopped developing JoliOS.

[collisionystm]

^ They have stopped developing JoliOS.


=(

[TeamRocket1233c]

Never mind on JoliOS then. JoliOS and DSL (Damn Small Linux) wouldn't really be worth it since they're no longer in development.

[BrokenKingpin]

I find Xubuntu runs perfectly well on my netbook. Lubuntu is good, but Xubuntu feels like a more complete OS, while still being light enough to run on my netbook.

[ojdon]

^ They have stopped developing JoliOS.

I was confused over this too until this morning after managing to squeeze out a little bit more information out of the support team. The upcoming Jolicloud is coming to JoliOS but not when the web service is released. I'm guessing they are holding back until the next LTS release of Ubuntu in April.

[TeamRocket1233c]

I've seen snapshots of Lubuntu, and really like the look of it though.

[ojdon]

Also, I know that LXDE has a lower RAM usage against Xfce by a considerable amount but what about CPU usage?

I have an Acer Aspire A150 with about 1.5GB of Memory so that isn't an issue but because it only has an Atom N270 processor I need to preserve as much CPU Usage as possible during boot time and loading up applications such as Midori Web Browser.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Should be better than XFCE, GNOME, and KDE on resource-usage in general.

[xtremo]

I have an Acer Aspire A150 with about 1.5GB of Memory

I've got the same model with 1Gb RAM and it flies with Lubuntu 11.10.
Ubuntu 11.10 is unuseable on it.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Cool.

[leclerc65]

I've got the same model with 1Gb RAM and it flies with Lubuntu 11.10.
Ubuntu 11.10 is unuseable on it.

So is Xubuntu 11.04.
But Lubuntu 10.04 on that Acer put other netbooks' speed (surfing) to shame.:P

[PaulW2U]

I have Lubuntu 11.10 installed on a USB stick. Earlier today I plugged this into my Samsung N130 netbook. It looked and felt great.

I could see several wireless connections but I could not connect to my home network although surprisingly I could connect to my mobile broadband provider. Just before I abandoned my attempts to get the wireless connection working I accidentally adjusted the screen brightness. This resulted in constant screen flashing, the same problem I experienced when trying to install Ubuntu 11.10. This is not a problem I attribute to Lubuntu but to my choice of netbook. A Samsung N130 is not something you should purchase if you want to use Linux on it and expect it to run without spending hours trying to fix the many problems that are well documented across many web forums such as this.

Lubuntu is probably as good as any other OS for a netbook unless you have a Samsung N130. :(

It seems I'll be using Windows XP on this netbook for the foreseeable future.

[TeamRocket1233c]

Cool. And there's other options than WinXP. For example, if your netbook can handle it, PC-BSD, or if you have the patience, UNIX skills, and time, OpenBSD.