Recently in Linux distro reviews Category

I've done this sort of thing before, but luckily somebody else is comparing the Xfce environments of Debian Lenny and Xubuntu/Ubuntu.

Results are not surprising and are in line with what I found over a year ago when I did a major comparison of everything from Xubuntu and Debian to Slackware and gOS, as well as Wolvix and standard Ubuntu.

Back then, Slackware and Debian with Xfce are indeed very, very fast systems. And while I didn't test them at the time, I expect ZenWalk and Vector with Xfce to perform as well or better.

That said, I've always liked the look of Xubuntu (especially in the 7.04-7.10 era), but it does run a good deal slower than other Xfce-equipped systems — and in fact didn't do much better than Ubuntu with GNOME in my test. Thus I've pretty much just used Ubuntu when I want it, although I did have some issues with crashing on my Gateway laptop that appeared at the time to be solved by adding Xubuntu to the install and running Xfce instead. (Since then, we've been running Ubuntu with GNOME — version 8.04 — on the Gateway, and it has been running very well.)

Despite all of this, I still have two Ubuntu 8.04 installations running right now. Sure Debian and Slackware are faster, but I'm quite happy running GNOME, and I find performance in Ubuntu more than acceptable. But what keeps me running Ubuntu is the ease of installation, configuration (I'm running with no xorg.conf — and perfect video out of the box — on both installs) and patching of the system. Despite all the talk of Ubuntu shipping before everything is "right," I can't remember suffering from a broken app or feature in recent memory. And it seems that even if a new app isn't available for some reason in the Ubuntu repository, the developers behind it are quick to create a package that's designed to run in Ubuntu (even though I prefer to run what's in Ubuntu's own repository).

All things being equal, I prefer Debian, but since Lenny all things have not been equal on my Gateway and Toshiba laptops (both made around 2002-3), with which I've had unsolvable video issues in both Lenny and at least on the Gateway in Slackware as well. No amount of tweaking xorg.conf, installing new drivers, etc., would make Debian Lenny play well with the Intel video in the Gateway, and when a quick Lenny install on the Toshiba brought up the same issue, I ran quickly to the welcoming, trouble-free arms of Ubuntu. Of course OpenBSD 4.4 is running virtually trouble-free on my second, identical Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop, and if OpenBSD can get xorg running perfectly with no configuration (and no xorg.conf needed), you'd think that Debian and Slackware could do the same.

In all fairness, I haven't tried Slackware again since 12.2 came out, so maybe things have changed, and I also haven't tried Lenny since it went stable (my experience was during the three or so months leading up to that point). Put simply, Ubuntu worked, so I use it.

And as I've also said before, many of the replies to requests for help in the Ubuntu Forums might be less than helpful, but the sheer volume of those messages means that finding the answer to your question/solution to your problem not just for Ubuntu but also for Debian is easier than you might think.

I decided to get deeper into Puppy 4.1.2 on my Toshiba Satellite 1100-S101 laptop.

I'm always looking for platforms on which I can do all my Daily News-related work, which means I need the Java runtime and Flash video.

Well, there is a Java package for Puppy. I'm surprised Java isn't part of the base install, but it appears not. I installed the package, and I even brought in the Opera Web browser to augment Seamonkey.

Both browsers are performing well, but for some reason Flash doesn't work in either. I distinctly remember Flash working in all of the Puppy 2 and 3 releases I've used previously, and now I'm left wondering what happened.

Also, Java did NOT work in either browser, so easy use of the LogMeIn remote-desktop service is not something happening in Puppy. I'm getting to the point where I'll need to bit the proverbial bullet and install Java from source in OpenBSD on this laptop so I can get that functionality. I can live without Flash (and the Flash I do have in i386 OpenBSD via Opera is marginal at best; it works in YouTube but not in Brightcove). I can sort of live without Java.

But it's better for the work that I do to have both of these things working well.

Also, I was surprised to see not Pidgin or Gaim as the IM client in Puppy but something I'd never heard of. Pidgin is available as a package, so that's not such a problem.

The end result is that while Puppy 4.1.2. runs quite well at first blush, I need to look closer at why I was so unsuccessful at getting Flash and Java to work. It should be easier than this.

And while Flash remains somewhat of a problem in OpenBSD (I probably need to be running an up-to-date Linux such as Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, Slackware, Zenwalk ... take your pick) I'll probably stick with it for the time being as my primary OS.