Xubuntu LTS (vs) Linux Mint LTS

[Interest]

Hi,

The unthinkable has happened to me, my laptop hardware has finally peaked its limitations, well, according to 99% of all driver / OS developers anyway.

It was running Windows XP and had been for a whopping 9 epic years with very minimum hick-ups, so I have been extremely pleased with it, but with the trashing of XP I was forced to upgrade to Windows 7 Starter / Basic (to keep resources down.) Well, dispute my best efforts, it absolutely sucks. Especially due to the fact that no drivers for my on built Intel GPU exist for vista/7/8 so I'm forced to use another driver which crashes and lag's most of the time.

My laptop uses a non-PAE CPU, which means Windows 7 was the last OS I could upgrade to in the Windows family. And as you can see, that has not gone so well.

So, for the last 2 weeks I have been pulling me hair out trying to figure out Linux in general as it took me around 2 weeks to clock the fact that 90% of all known distro's where based on Ubuntu, which means none of them worked on my laptop due to Ubuntu needing a PAE CPU.... so much for that one then.

Anyways, after almost given up I figured out that the LTS versions of a few distros where using Ubuntu that did not require PAE (12.04 I believe) which means I'm good to use either one of these. Now I have boiled it down to Xubuntu LTS and Mint LTS xfce in terms of "lightweight" usability and my question is:

Out of the two OS's, which one is faster and more lightweight to use? I have both running on a Live USB and to be honest, I 'think' Xubuntu seems to win here, but what I really want to know is, if I had either one permanently installed, which one over the next few years would stay the fastest? In terms of bloat, etc.

Oh, for the record, I have tried Puppy Linux and it is the fastest I agree, however I just can’t stand the Windows 3.1 theme it has going for itself, haha!

Thanks guys!

[xenopeek]

Moved here as this is about other distros as well, and chat in any case as asking for opinions.

Now I have boiled it down to Xubuntu LTS and Mint LTS xfce in terms of "lightweight" usability and my question is:

Out of the two OS's, which one is faster and more lightweight to use?

Depends on what you do with it after you have it installed. Out of the box there might be a difference, but once you start installing the programs you additionally need, and start customizing the operating system to meet your needs, those differences won't be relevant.

I'd say go with the one that you like the looks of best. Xubuntu clearly has a different default look from Linux Mint Xfce (which arguably, is a bit more "Windows XP like"). You might run into some things like Xubuntu not being able to play some media files. Linux Mint Xfce comes preinstalled with all codecs to play common (and less common) media files. That said, you can install all that on Xubuntu yourself also.

As to your jibe of 90% of the distros being based on Ubuntu, that's not the case. But yes, many distros--also non-Ubuntu--have switched to a default Linux kernel that takes advantage of all capabilities as available on almost all processors (only some Intel Celerons and Intel Pentiums from around the millenium don't support PAE).

[BlackVeils]

i agree with xenopeek. i dont think there is much difference in the ram usage anyway.

for better performance, you can change your swappiness:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwapF ... ange_it.3F
(its easy to do really)

and use lighter programs than what some of the defaults are, examples:
music - guayadeque or audacious
videos - gnome mplayer or totem
similar to paint on Windows - pinta
word processing - abiword
spreadsheets - gnumeric
youtube without the web browser bloat - minitube
basic text editor - leafpad
terminal - lxterminal
task manager - lxtask
web browsing - midori (with iphone user agent option)
email - claws mail or sylpheed
software add/remove: synaptic package manager is better than using typical software center
picture manager - gthumb
disc burning - xfburn
picture viewer - ristretto or gpicview
psensor is generally a good temperature monitor
there are many other alternatives!

[mr_raider]

What is your CPU?

[Interest]

What is your CPU?

Pentium M 765 - 2.1Ghz 2MB cache 400Mhz (witch 2GB DDR2 RAM)

Theoretically there is a way around this little problem and that is to purchase the 553Mhz version of the Pentium M which is @ 2.26Ghz however because my FSB is 400hz it will clock itself down to around 1.7Ghz which to be honest is not worth loosing 400Mhz of total clock speed just to run a newer version of Windows or Linux.

Due to the lack of driver support for my GPU I wont be running Windows anymore anyway. However Ive realized that watching videos on Linux also causes this weird tearing with flash which is extremely annoying.

İ have however just discovered Lubuntu which is using LXDE.... What do you think of this versus the above two?

[xenopeek]

LXDE is more lightweight than Xfce, without a doubt. If it floats your boat, go for it. Both are two barebones for me, with slow development cycles.

[Jedinovice]

I found this in the forums. I think you will find the data of interest:

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=90&t=162675

[benali72]

I've installed a lot of Mint/Xfce4 on older computers, and Xubuntu a few times. Performance is very similar between the two. As previously noted, after you tailor them to your preferences they may not be all that different. One thing that drives me to Mint, though, is the longer term support option. Mint 13 LTS is good till April 2017. Xubuntu doesn't extend support as long, AFAIK. This may be important with an older computer where you can't upgrade to ever-newer releases. Best of luck.

[Interest]

Hi

I just installed Lubuntu and all I can say is WOW! Feels like Windows XP on a quad core machine, haha! Epic.

All I need to do is figure out how to get Office 2010 installed (vine?) so I can use peoples files and folders properly as Libre \ OpenOffice always messes up the files and lays them all out differently when you open them.

Well, I`m extremely happy that I don`t have to buy a new laptop.

Thanks again guys.

[Interest]

For the sake of keeping this laptop a few more years, is there anyway to find a copy of Mint LTS running LXDE out of the box?

[BlackVeils]

you could just install lxde into the xfce edition of mint, then choose the lxde session from login screen.

[The Dark Side]

Hi interest: I think both are Excellent operating systems. Both LTS: Xubuntu and Linux Mint XFCE how LTS. The performance its seemed. Linux Mint brings more and better programs preinstalled for Xubuntu, but that's something that can be solved very easily....

Xubuntu 14.04 it's excellent, I've already tested. Anyway, I would expect the release of Linux Mint 17 XFCE, since support time offering Linux Mint it's better. Xubuntu 14.04 will have 3 years of support, however Linux Mint 17 XFCE will have 5 years of support. In your place, I would expect Linux Mint 17, but hey, it's a question of taste. Luck and Best Regards.-

PD: install LXDE into the xfce edition of Linux Mint, it's a great solution also....

[InkKnife]

I am pessimistic about your chances of getting video to play smoothly on this machine. The problem is that your video hardware is just not up to handling modern codecs so your old laptop ends up doing in software on the CPU what newer machines do in hardware on the graphics subsystem.
I appreciate the desire to get as much out of your hardware as possible and you have done a good job with this laptop but if video playback is a priority for you I think your best bet is to find a Core2duo laptop second hand and use that.

[oshirowanen]

I have been thinking about this dilemma too. xubuntu lts or linux mint xfce lts.

I am leaning towards linux mint xfce lts at the moment because xubuntu lts is only supported for 3 years and linux mint xfce lts is supported for 5 years!!!

[BigEasy]

Mint 17 XFCE is better then Xubuntu. I relatively long time wotked with Xubuntu. At first sight Mint 17 XFCE is very same. But somehow it feels faster, lighter and... so speak more correct in the details. For example, startup notifications work in Mint 17 XFCE. In Xubuntu don't work.