Goodbye Ubuntu, it's been fun — as part of my withdrawal, I'm running Xubuntu ... for now anyway

Linux shouldn't be so painful :)

Xubuntu imo is one of the poorly implemented versions of Xfce, in terms of how light it is on the hardware and frankly, it just looks and feels and performs like a poor man's Gnome. I have a friend who ran Lubuntu for a while and while he said it was noticeably faster, he also came across some bugs and problems that weren't supposed to be there in the final version (although the developer admits his final version is a beta).

Now, Mint also has XFCE and LDXE versions, and its new Fluxbox version is coming soon, one hopes. The previous one was excellent. If I didn't already have a perfect distro for me, that's likely what I'd be using.

Anyway, I firmly believe that anyone who is looking for a light and/or sane distro will sooner or later end up with core of something plus one of the *boxes. Once you taste that, Xfce or LXDE just won't do. And Gnome looks like a distant nightmare.

Although if you're hellbent on using Ubuntu, maybe you should try installing the base distro (minimal I think they call it) and just build it to your liking from there. I think it's much better than removing things from the main edition or whatever.

And have you tried various versions of PCLOS?

Right now I'm just trying to get through the next month without having to do a reinstall. I've used Xfce, Fluxbox and Fvwm in the past, and I'd like to see a Fluxbox distro that's built up a bit with all that good stuff like automounting of USB drives that I like to have.

I'll certainly be looking at Mint, Fedora and Debian.

The thing is, I pretty much like GNOME and Xfce. And maybe Ubuntu 10.04 runs great on newer machines. Some of it is the CPU- and disk-space hogging, some is the bugs like the gnome-screensaver and Me Menu issues I've had, the rest is the fact that this resource-intensive stuff, when it is working, isn't really ready just yet.

For instance, when my Me-Menu microblogging box does appear, it doesn't tell me where I'm posting to or how many characters I have left. You have to open Gwibber for that. I'm sure these refinements will come to these features, but I'd rather wait until then.

And I still can't figure out the two "social" menus. Why are there two menus for e-mail, chat and microblogging on the right side of the panel?

The whole "where should the application window buttons go" thing didn't so much bother me as a user as did the way the whole decision was decided, implemented and reacted to after the fact.

But overall it's that I need something that works. For now Xubuntu is doing fine. I'll keep my eyes open in the months ahead.

You jerk, I shot Pepsi through my nose when I read your effortlessly wrong reference to The Reverend Horton Heat. It's a psychobilly punk band that's been around since the mid 80s, and are about as irreverent as they come.

in terms of lightness, XFCE isn't all that light anymore. I personally use LXDE, which is much faster and lighter than XFCE, and has a much more familiar interface.

And as far as Twitter/Identi.ca go, I recommend trying out the Choqok client, which has much better performance than Gwibber does. It's written for KDE though, but is written in C++.

Compare to Gwibber, which has a bit of bling, and is written Python. So, Gwibber has a major performance disadvantage, even on a modern system like my 2.6ghz dual core desktop.

I have to say, you're expecting to get lambasted, but leaving Ubuntu for Xubuntu isn't all that drastic... it's not like you've switched back to windows...

I feel your pain friend, I hacked my Gnome session to the point where the only thing left was the session and nautilus in the search for better performance. It can be done, but it is time consuming. It means replacing most of the gnome desktop with lighter weight options and pretty much forgetting about all those snazzy python apps Ubuntu keeps cranking out. What you end up with is a solid gnome environment without the fluff... not bad actually ;)

I feel that the Ubuntu project really considers non-GNOME desktops more of an irritant than anything else.

In my case I really wanted to turn back the clock to Ubuntu Karmic/Lucid/Hardy, and with Xubuntu I'm basically doing that.

But where there used to be no speed advantage to Xubuntu over Ubuntu on the desktop, given all that Ubuntu is packing into the experience that hasn't yet made it into Xubuntu, I think the whole Xubuntu-Ubuntu situation deserves another look.

That said, I'm looking very closely at the many LXDE systems out there. It seems to have quite a bit of momentum.

It's hard to beat Thunar for speed and efficiency. I wonder if PCManFM is up to the task.

You should totally give Xfce4 a chance.To be honest, it's just as themable as Gnome from what I've seen, it's just that a few applets are a bit odd. However, with Xfapplet, you can run all the Gnome applets anyway.

In my opinion, Xfce4 is more stable and solid than Gnome, and it's very underappreciated as a DE. Maybe if Gnome 3 isolates enough people we'll see more Xfce4 based distros pop up and people will realize how much faster Thunar is than Nautilus, how much faster it starts up, and just fall in love. Seriously, I switched to KDE 4 recently, and I think I'd be more likely to go back to Xfce4 than Gnome. Ubuntu's customizations are the biggest reason to do so- Xfce4 fully supports GTK applications.

Frank, we think alike: You can't beat Thunar and Chrome. I'll be looking at WindowMaker.

I've used Xubuntu as my base install for a long time now.
That said, it is not my principle desktop which is WindowMaker.
Why? It's a long story, but what is relevant to this discussion is:

• My hardware is vintage 2000, so I need it light
  
• I can incorporate the Xfce tools easily to WM
  
• I had tried lxde but wanted GUI management of the menus etc.Do they have any?
  

Thunar is great! I've not seen a better tool for file renaming - but Xfe is much faster - even if it looks like the same vintage as the rest of my desktop.

I've been running the same Window Manager now for over 10 years - and its kept up with the new tooling and hardware. Can you imagine the improved efficiency when using the same shortcuts over that time?

Ya gotta love Linux! Its all about your experience - not Corporate profit!

I've distro-hopped till I can't hop no more and for what its worth my two favourite distros are Debian and Pclinuxos. The reasons for both are 'Simplicity and Community'. I don't know if you've ever tried Pclos 2010 but the kde4 version is the best implementation of its ilk but they have a version to suit all needs (Including Gnome).

This is not to diss Ubuntu. It works well enough for me and I will probably always have the latest version on a partition somewhere.

So REMOVE the f**kin' MeMenu, Gwibber, and Ubuntu One. It's the first thing I do on all my installs, and I have the same dinosaur notebook that you do:

sudo apt-get purge indicator-me ubuntuone-client ubuntuone-client-gnome python-ubuntuone python-ubuntuone-client python-ubuntuone-storageprotocol libubuntuone-1.0-1 rhythmbox-ubuntuone-music-store gwibber gwibber-service

Restart and you're done.
THERE. NOW STOP WHINING.

Lubuntu is a lot lighter than xubuntu - well worth a look.

Is it possible to "shift" to a different keyboard layout in XFCE?
(something like this http://www.petur.eu/blog/?p=44 )

You really should try building up from a command-line install; I did, and Ubuntu with GNOME is now running very well on my first-generation Eee PC (630 MHz Celeron, 512 MB RAM, 4 GB hard disk).

Anyway, good luck in your quest. :)

Steve, I totally get what you mean. Sometimes the whole circus of fixing your current install and if that completely fails, finding a new distro and doing a reinstall and reconfigure and what not, simply is too much. Sometimes a machine that simply works and gets out of your way is sorely needed.

I have "fled" Ubuntu as well. I like the stabilized currentness of Ubuntu, combined with the Debian architecture. What I absolutely don't like is the way Canonical handled their left button decision. It's not the buttons, it's the "We are totally committed to community, but we call the shots, now fall in line!" The questionable decision to use every right window corner for what is essentially a duplicated system tray, was just the cherry on top.

All the social stuff is nice for those who feel they need to be social on a website. I have no need for it. I really don't think plonking minutiae of everyday life on a website is being social. I just ignored the social stuff in in Ubuntu, because it is optional to use.

It is becoming clear though that Canonical is pushing forward with transforming Ubuntu into a freebie vehicle for their own for pay web services and they keep tying stuff together I don't need integrated with each other. I see no need for Canonicals web services. I won't buy any of it, not even to "support" Ubuntu. If Canonical wants my money they need to dream up something I think is worth paying for. A "cloud" storage service still has many more cons for me, than a one time purchase, external hard drive.

For now, Linux Mint 9 "Isadora" fits the bill for me quite well. Mint removes the Canonicalness, while still delivering the same core experience.

I love Xubuntu. Xfce is awesome. And I don't have a lot of the bugginess I find with vanilla Ubuntu. GNOME is just too bloated for me. (KDE too.)

For years I did the distro and windowmanager/DE hop, but a couple years ago I finally settled on a single distro which in my opinion makes every other distro feel very unorganized and clunky. I have tinkered with many distros since then, simply out of curiousity (and to see their progress), but for my production use, I use nothing but Arch Linux. The system's organization is excellent. For example, most of your system can be managed by editing a single file '/etc/rc.conf'. In there you set your hostname, kernel modules, daemons to run on startup, ethernet info etc... Arch has an excellent package manager called 'pacman', which is quite superior to apt-get or yum. Arch is *very* well documented. If you want to set up an Arch box running gnome, just follow the beginners guide and then google for "Arch linux gnome", and your first hit will be a wiki page on how to set up gnome with everything perfectly configured.

Arch is also a rolling release distribution. This is perhaps one of its best attributes. Once you install Arch, you *never* have to reinstall... ever. Every once in awhile you issue the command 'pacman -Syu', which will resync your repositories, download any updates, and update your system.

Another great resource is what they call the AUR. If there happens to be a program that does not exist in the official repositories (which are very few), you will most likely be able to obtain it from the AUR. The AUR is really just a place where people can submit special Arch scripts to compile a program's source into Arch packages which can then be installed using 'pacman -U '. In this way, you don't have to install things willy-nilly from source. The package manager keeps everything accounted for and organized for you.

I would highly recommend Arch Linux to anyone that wants a fast, transparent, and long-term Linux setup... you know, one that you don't have to reinstall every 6 months *ahem*.

PRAISE THE LORD

and you to dude. i just found the rev. horton heat. soooooo cool. a little bit of of the B52s and DEVO. out here in the sierra nevada mountains, we be rocking

i agree, unbuntu is just too 'outre' now lets sashay

I saw the Rev. Horton Heat play live many times. They put on an excellent show.

Howdy, dug the comments here. I've been thinking about giving Xubuntu another go (even though it seems like it's becoming less and less well maintained) and probably trying out Lubuntu (even though it's not LTS) and the comments here have given me a bit more motivation to do so (I might even pick up Arch again or just roll my own minimal Ubuntu install).

I think your post is a bit funny though. You seem to make a big deal about how horrible Ubuntu is for some pretty simple things which can be easily removed and for problems which come off like they're likely results of misguided system hacking.

This becomes all the more entertaining when you simply dump the xubuntu-desktop meta package on top of your existing Ubuntu install and apparently call it "all better."

Whatever works for you, and I'm glad you might have found something more fitting, but you seem like you're trying awfully hard to make a big deal out of something that likely isn't.

Cheers!

I forgot, I had one additional question. Are you reporting these bugs that you're experiencing or just writing blog entries about them?

Get a real computer and stop whining. You have an 8 yr old pc and then complain that a modern OS doesn't work well? Anyways, who are you that we should care what you do with your computer? I guess Lxer.com will publish anyone.

You don’t need to reinstall just to change desktops. They all come from the same repository anyway.

For example, to install the Kubuntu bits, all you have to do is

apt-get install kubuntu-desktop

I agree with the other posters - it's time for an upgrade. I realize that you would no longer be able to write these kinds of blog posts, but I am sure we could live without them (what is your point with the 2002-era hardware? Who is your intended audience?)

While I didn't know the exact recipe for removing the new, unproven bits of Ubuntu in the 10.04 cycle, and it is extremely useful to let people know just how to do it (and I thank the commenter who did so here), having a widely aimed distribution that needs just about all the "innovation" sucked out of it in order to make it usable — that's just not the best of situations.

As far as bugs go, I did file a couple of early bugs. I didn't file a bug on the screensaver issue I was having in GNOME, but by this time I was far enough out the door that I was (and am) just trying to get a working system.

I'll quote wolfen69 in total:

Get a real computer and stop whining. You have an 8 yr old pc and then complain that a modern OS doesn't work well? Anyways, who are you that we should care what you do with your computer? I guess Lxer.com will publish anyone.

So just what constitutes a real computer anyway? Do they get killed by the community "Logan's Run"-style when they're 3/5/7 years old?

Linux isn't the greatest for the absolute newest hardware - it often hasn't yet made it into the kernel, and drivers don't usually appear until something's been on the market for awhile.

So there's a sweet spot for hardware, I guess.

But in an age of 1.6 GHz Atom netbooks shipping with 1 GB RAM, why is my 1.3 GHz Celeron laptop with 1 GB RAM unworthy of running Ubuntu (or any other Linux, for that matter)?

Maybe there should be a CPU/RAM cutoff for Linux. How about "no more single-core," or "go suck it, 32-bit CPUs"?

Unlike Ubuntu, its parent distro Debian hasn't turned its back on a 1.3 GHz CPU. Hell, Debian, FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD haven't abandoned PowerPC, even though Fedora is following Ubuntu in casting the architecture off on an ice floe.

I'd like people to know it's not GNOME (which can be quite speedy in the right configuration), it's Ubuntu.

I just recently acquired some new hardware, and I'm sure that will change what I write.

But remember, dear readers, that for every one of you who doesn't care about putting Linux on computers made way back in 2002, there's another person extremely interested in same.

It's a big part of the Linux/Unix community — making older hardware as usable as possible. It's a hobby for some, necessity for others and obsession for a few.

(Remember my 13-part series on the 1999-era Compaq Armada 7770dmt, now running Debian Lenny?)

I also use Xubuntu for my lower-spec work computer. Runs very well, feel quite light despite the bad-mouthing Xubuntu tends to get.

Be sure to remove any services you don't need, via settings->xfce4 settings manager->Session & Startup.

Unfortunately, Thunar didn't work out for me, as it wouldn't mount network shares correctly. So I had to install Nautilus (and launch it with the "--no-desktop" switch to avoid opening a gnome session).

Other than the Thunar issue, it's worked out fine.

"But remember, dear readers, that for every one of you who doesn't care about putting Linux on computers made way back in 2002, there's another person extremely interested in same."

Do you really think there's a 1:1 correspondence between the two sets of readers?

I urge you to reconsider this point, not least because it's this kind of flawed logic that makes these articles so poor - the same flawed logic means that your experiences actually reflect only a very small subset of possible experiences, and it would be good of you to make this clear in future.

Normally I'd say you're right, that there are way more people using new hardware (2006-present) than older hardware with Linux and BSD, but I have a very strong belief that there's more 2000-2005 hardware out there in service than you'd think.

The "average" users is far more reluctant to wipe Windows 7 off their shiny new laptop than they are to roll Linux onto the 6-year-old machine that a relative/employer/friend is no longer using because the average Windows machine doesn't have a long life in many circumstances.

The major Linux distributions and BSD projects focus on new hardware exclusively at their own peril - they need to acknowledge that they are a major solution for those with older hardware, no install disks for Windows and a need to get those machines productive.

I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 on a Dell Optiplex Pentium 4HT with 1 GB ram, 80 GB HD, 2.8 GHZ. Although it runs fine, I'm thinking of switching over to Xubuntu for several reasons.

1) I use Dropbox not Ubuntu One. I find Ubuntu One to be way too buggy and it slows down my system. I have it turned off now.

2) Gwibber is buggy and doesn't post right half the time. I really don't need it to use FB, etc. I have other ways.

3) F-Spot is annoying and is not needed. Exaile is better than Rythmbox. I like Notes better than Tomboy. I would have to install OpenOffice though, have to have it.

4) XFCE is highly customizable, attractive, and easy to use. Xubuntu 10.04 is LTS, which is great. Xubuntu is Ubuntu with better apps, looks, and less bloat. I wish Linux Mint would come out with LM 9 XFCE as this could be a great option.

5) I would not recommend Lubuntu. It is very unstable!

Steve, thank you for your posts. I have enjoyed reading them. Don't listen to the haters.

Marie, I have a machine similar to this (actually my shop probably has about 1,000 of these, all running Windows XP), and it seems like a pretty good platform for most Linux/BSD releases. Pentium 4 has a lot of life in it.

Until recently, Ubuntu has been a lot closer to Debian in terms of what you get with the default desktop installation. That is really changing with all the services grafted onto the 10.04 LTS, and while it no doubt differentiates Ubuntu in a way that orange/brown and codecs could not, it also represents an opportunity for other distros (even Xubuntu) to offer a less-resource-heavy alternative.

I've been running Xfce (in Xubuntu) for about 2 weeks now. I've run Xfce extensively before, mostly in Slackware, Wolvix, Debian and OpenBSD. Once again, Xfce is a solid desktop environment with a lot of configuration options. I also really, really like the Thunar file manager. LXDE appears to be under heavy development, and a lot of distros are offering LXDE spins.

I'll be watching both LXDE and Xfce closely going forward. For me personally, I don't find GNOME too heavy, and I like a lot of the things in GNOME. Plus, my absolutely favorite Linux/Unix app, gThumb, is a GNOME app. So I'm not going to be "living" without pieces of GNOME on my system.

A lot of distros offer Xfce as their main desktop (Zenwalk, Salix, Wolvix ... probably many more I'm forgetting about), but I wonder if more will use LXDE as their main DE/WM in the future.

I'm about to set up a couple of new installations, and I'm looking at Fedora with LXDE and/or Xfce, Salix with Xfce, Xubuntu, Debian, Sidux, and maybe even a dual boot with Open/Free/Net- or DragonFly BSD.