Featured Comments: Week of 2011 August 14

There were 2 posts that got a pretty large number of comments (one in particular), so I'll try to repost a few from each.

Review: Linux Mint 11 "Katya" LXDE

Because this wasn't an entirely positive review (and for all that, my only suggestion was to go with the GNOME edition of Linux Mint as opposed to the LXDE edition, and for that people still somehow got up in arms), there were many comments, a few of them rather mean-spirited and baseless, but aside from that, let's get on with some of the more thoughtful (which doesn't mean no disagreements whatsoever) comments.
Reader dotmrt suggested a reason for the RAM usage discrepancies: "Actually I have used Lubuntu on one machine that had 256MB of RAM and it ran pretty smooth. I think that 320MB of RAM idle is simply the result of having more RAM available. Memory management is a difficult topic to tackle, but I can assure that LXDE desktop on Lubuntu's case was really nice and a lifesaver. There aren't much nice options for old machines with 256MB of RAM out there. Sure, you can install some really ugly and user-un-friendly distros, but that was not what I was after."
An anonymous commenter supported my methodologies in the face of some rather tired old comments: "When I boot the live cds, I check the ram usage, and it's generally mucy the same as installed usage, making this a valid form of testing. Don't complain just because you don't get a favourable review."
Another anonymous reader was slightly more critical, but in a good way: "This is not a hate comment :), just my observation of live v/s installed sessions. Quite often i've seen Live CD's loading lot of services and gobbling up RAM as a result, however the same when installed doesn't translate that way. Case in point is Crunchbang XFCE that i've in live & in my hard-disk, live takes about 100-110mb while installed takes about 70-80mb. Even LMDE was like that atleast in my case. Likewise i've seen other distros as well that take up so much RAM in live session but not the same amount after installation. Also in some cases certain things don't work the first time, but the same usb and same image when loaded subsequently seem to work. Call it defective usb, bad install image or anything else but they dont always exhibit the same behavior when installed. Btw this was just to point out the differences in live and hd install, not to incite another war of words."
Yet another anonymous commenter said, "If you understood the internals of how the Live System versus installed system works, you would realize that what you have done is a horribly foolish method for reviewing a Distro.  You can not even tell me now if the INSTALLER recognized and configured your hardware properly. only that the live script did. Not a big deal for me since I design custom remixes of Debian/Ubuntu for a living, and can tell you more about hardware compatibility then some of the folks on their development teams. As far as memory useage. believe it or not LXDE runs in no less ram then XFCE, and both of those only about 32-64MB less then Gnome with the same services running.  I run xfce 4.6 in 116MB Ram at idle. LXDE in the same setup takes 110MB, and Gnome 132MB Ram. (NOT Gnome 3, which sucks and takes a boatload of Ram and CPU. My company and clients just parted ways with bloat-gnome in favor of XFCE.)"

Revisited: openSUSE 11.4 GNOME

Reader enrico said, "is a good review, but i don't agree with conclusion. opensuse 11.4 was released month ago, and it was the only major distro that stuck with kernel 2.6.37 and gnome 2 instead kernel 2.39 or gnome 3, or unity. in fact, this choice is due to the release time, but gnome 3 is in a preliminari stage, and it's usability for now is improving every day, but has also less features than gnome 2. and kernel 2.39 has a big issue with power consumption in laptops. in conclusiom, suse remains major distro with a good release without major hicchups of ubuntu, or fedora. installing it in a real machine is a good choice to make a review, because the speed is good, repository are fully populated of applications. and there is the possibility to turn it into a rolling release, with all the new features of gnome, kde and so on."
Commenter JimC reached the opposite conclusion: "I always have "high hopes" for OpenSUSE leading up to a major release, since it always looks like it will be a great showcase for Linux, with newer versions of KDE, etc. But, I'm almost always very disappointed with the [supposedly stable] releases, since Quality Control appears to be be virtually non existent. For example, with OpenSUSE 11.4, I immediately noticed issues from both a Live CD and a hard drive install with things like the Exposure Blender choice from the graphics menus not working, since you'll see an error that a library needed by Hugin is not installed. I also saw other issues with it during some quick testing. For example, when I clicked on the icon in the tray to install new updates and KPackagekit came up, it installed the updates and went to a blank KPackageKit screen with no indication that it finished anything, then tries to reinstall the same updates again if you try to get it working (even though they were already successfully installed). From what I can see of reviews, my experience is not unique (as I've seen reviewers comment on how KPackagekit appears to have issues). IOW, my first impressions (even after a hard disk install) were that OpenSUSE 11.4 is very buggy, and should have been labeled a beta versus final release (at least for the KDE Live CD version of it, as I haven't tried the DVD version yet). That kind of thing seems to be typical with some distros like OpenSUSE, where I wouldn't want to recommend them to anyone other than seasoned Linux users (that wouldn't mind working through the bugs to get a stable system), so that I wouldn't give Linux a bad reputation when users run into menu choices that don't work, bugs trying to update packages and more. IOW, from outward appearances after a quick look at it, nobody even bothered to test and make sure application menu choices worked, much less test applications more thoroughly to find bugs. IMO, it should have been labeled a beta, not a final release."

Thanks to all those who commented on this past week's posts. Once again, I have nothing planned for this coming week, but I'm sure I'll have something to write about. Again, if you like the stuff here, please continue subscribing and commenting!

Review: Linux Mint 11 "Katya" LXDE

Main Screen

This week, I again found myself in the position of not having much to write about here. Then, I saw that Linux Mint 11 "Katya" LXDE had been released, and considering that I had previously reviewed Debian-based Linux Mint Xfce, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to try Linux Mint's newest Ubuntu-based lightweight distribution.

Recently, the various editions of Linux Mint have undergone much flux. The only certainties are that there will be two GNOME editions, one Ubuntu-based and one Debian-based. I guess it's also pretty much certain at this point that the Xfce edition will stick with the Debian base. Outside of these things, for now, it seems like the LXDE edition, which I am reviewing today, will stick with the Ubuntu base, but that may or may not change after this; furthermore, the KDE and Fluxbox editions appear to have moved to the Debian base, but neither edition has seen release candidate ISO files released, meaning that there still seems to be a lot of work to be done on both. (As a side note, I will probably review the KDE edition once it is released.)

I tested this LXDE edition on a live USB made with MultiSystem. I did not test the installation. Follow the jump to see whether this really makes good on its promise to be a more lightweight version of Linux Mint.

Another Quick Update on Fresh OS

I have exams on Friday (today) and Monday, so I'm pretty busy for these few days. However, after my Monday exam, I'll be a lot more free, meaning that I'll be able to tweak Fresh OS some more.
I read WebUpd8 pretty often, and they had an article this week about Manhattan OS, a custom Ubuntu build with GNOME and Plasma along with a bunch of other cool goodies, being renamed Jupiter OS and moving to a rolling-release Debian base. Hey, that sounds a lot like Fresh OS! I'm already feeling the competition (hehheh). I guess that's one incentive to push out a new release of Fresh OS as soon as possible.
My other incentive is that one of my friends has expressed an interest in installing Linux on her computer. As her computer is fairly old and is somewhat limited in RAM, I'm thinking of either installing Linux Mint 9 LTS "Isadora" LXDE or Linux Mint "Debian", both of which are fairly lightweight. I'm leaning towards the latter due to the greater number of features in GNOME vs. LXDE as well as the rolling-release nature of the latter. This could also give me a chance to install Fresh OS. What I'll probably end up doing is installing Linux Mint "Debian" and building it up into Fresh OS by manually getting the necessary packages.
Finally, Fresh OS itself is progressing nicely. For some reason, try as I might, I just can't change the background and theme in GDM 3 (though I successfully did it before, so it may have to do with an update to GDM 3). However, the GNOME Panel global menu applet from Hadret's Debian repository works very well, and so does the Elementary theme. I still need to work out the bottom panel/panel-replacement and the browser (and maybe a couple of other applications), and I'll be mostly done. I think I can push out a new release by next week. Yay!

Comparison Test: Peppermint OS One 08042010 vs. Ice 10012010

One: Main Screen

(NOTE: I know a lot of commenters have asked for clickable thumbnails. Unfortunately, this appears to be an issue with Blogger, because when I initially upload pictures, they are clickable thumbnails, but a few minutes later, they magically lose their functionality. I'm not sure why that is, and the only workaround is to make the images the original size, which is huge (800 by 600 pixels each) and would drown out all the text, which isn't good. Unless you're OK with seeing smaller images (and they will have to be made this small), this is how it is for now. Sorry. I'm not too happy about this either, so I hope this situation will change soon.)
By popular demand, I am testing Peppermint OS (both versions). This is not going to be a completely in-depth comparison as in the comparison of KDE distributions, because the two versions of Peppermint OS differ only in the details; the way they work is essentially the same. I tested both in VirtualBox and allocated 256 MB of RAM to each version.
So what is Peppermint OS? It's not actually based on Linux Mint, as the name might suggest (more on that later); it's an LXDE distribution based on Lubuntu, with an emphasis on cloud applications. What does this mean? This means that Peppermint OS replaces many traditional desktop applications with web-based counterparts; it uses Mozilla Prism (One) or Ice (Ice) to essentially make the webpage like any other desktop application, without needing to open a fully-fledged instance of a web browser. This makes it possible to put things like Facebook and Picasa in the LXDE main menu (more on that later). Follow the jump to see how all this works out.

Preview: Debian 6 "Squeeze" (Part 3: LXDE and Xfce)

LXDE Main Screen

Each review done individually would be rather short, so I'm combining reviews of these two DEs into one post. It shouldn't turn out to be too long. The other thing is that I didn't test the installation procedure in either because I suspect it's the exact same as in GNOME and KDE (and because this current virtual hard drive is messed up GRUB-wise).
LXDE seems to be the new hot thing; to cater to users who need a lightweight distribution either out of necessity (older hardware, need to allocate as much memory as possible to applications without giving up a usable DE) or out of preference, pretty much every major distribution has begun to offer an LXDE edition. It's user-friendly but light on resources; it's well-built yet very modular. It just seems like the place to be.

Xfce Main Screen

On the other hand, Xfce, previously the DE of choice for lightweight DE enthusiasts, has been the source of these new LXDE users. What do I mean? While some people still do swear by Xfce, it's quickly losing more and more users, and distributions are shifting their development resources away from Xfce (and usually towards LXDE). Why is this? Unlike LXDE, which is consistently getting better with each release, Xfce hasn't really changed in quite a few releases — it has become a sort of static DE. Plus, it just doesn't look as fresh and cutting-edge as the other DEs. (Full disclosure: The only experience I've had with Xfce is with Linux Mint 7 "Gloria" Xfce, and as Ubuntu does to Xubuntu, Linux Mint makes the Xfce version behave a lot more like the GNOME version (as opposed to leaving it with the default Xfce look).) Even looking at DistroWatch statistics (which are alternatively called accurate and inaccurate), Lubuntu has overtaken Xubuntu and even Kubuntu in popularity.
Follow the jump to see how each DE fares, as implemented in Debian 6 "Squeeze".

Review: wattOS R2

Main Screen and Main Menu

The only review of a lightweight Ubuntu-based distribution I've done before this is of #! 9.04.01. I was looking around to see if there are any others, and I came across wattOS.
wattOS R2 is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" and uses LXDE. From other reviews of this distribution that I have read, the thing that sets it apart is its comprehensive set of power management tools (hence the name).
The other reason I wanted to test this is because I wanted to try to make a "light" version of my Fresh OS respin. Yeah, I know this is based on Ubuntu while the regular version is based on Debian, but I've heard murmurs in the wattOS forums of the next wattOS version being based on Debian anyway. Anyway, this means that I will also be testing the installation procedure as well as a few other things post-installation.
I tested this in VirtualBox with 256 MB of RAM, as I wanted to test the performance of this lightweight distribution under a lower resource environment. Follow the jump to see how all of this goes.

Featured Comments: Week of 2010 September 19

There were a few posts that garnered comments this week, so I will list them all.

Whose LXDE Is It Anyway?

Anonymous reader 1, referring to my example of KDE as a tightly-integrated DE, counters, "Funny the components you mentioned as integral part of KDE (Nepomuk, Akonadi, and Strigi) can be run in any DE (like LXDE) as well."
Anonymous reader 2 counters this by saying, "To use Nepomuk, Akonadi, and Strigi you'd need to have some kde libraries : x11-libs/qt-qt3support. This probably means you have kde installed and lxde."
As anonymous reader 3 points out, "If someone really wants, it's possible to even run a KDE main component (like Konqueror) in a Gnome desktop (say Ubuntu), provided the necessary infrastructure (in this case, among others, kdebase) is provided. That, of course, defeats the idea of economy and the practical results desktop integration brings."
Finally, anonymous reader 4 explains, "Besides, I don't see that lack of identity as a problem, and something rarely mentioned: the main advantage of OB (and LXDE) is not really lightweightness,but customizability. No other DE is even a match in that respect (except maybe some tilling WMs, but those generaly require you to know some programing language)."

Microsoft's Hardware is Good Stuff

An anonymous reader corrects my description of Microsoft and its hardware: "That's cuz they don't make it, they contract for it."

Review: ArchBang 2010.09 "apeiro"

An anonymous reader asks, "Why are the pics not thumbnails so I can view larger?" I'm still working on it.

Review: ArchBang 2010.09 "apeiro"

Main Screen

You may be asking, "Why are you reviewing this? You just did a review 2 days ago!" Actually, I wrote the preview on Sunday and scheduled it to automatically publish on Wednesday. On Thursday, the official stable version of ArchBang 2010.09 "apeiro" was released. As I have touched upon most of the things relating to this distribution in the last article about ArchBang, this will be a slightly shorter review. Or will it? Follow the jump to find out.

Whose LXDE Is It Anyway?

I'm not here to answer the question of what LXDE is. Wikipedia has a very well-written article explaining what LXDE is. I'm also not here to hate on LXDE's functions and capabilities; it is a very nice and capable DE that's great for low-resource environments and environments where speed (and not overwhelming aesthetics) is paramount. What's been bugging me for a long time is that I've felt that LXDE doesn't really have its own identity.
Take WattOS. Its website says that it's a desktop made of Openbox and LXDE. Yet, Wikipedia says that Openbox is but a component (the window manager, in this case) of LXDE, and here the WattOS website elevates Openbox's status from a subset of LXDE to the equal of LXDE. What is LXDE now? Is it just the collection of LX-tools?
Now consider CrunchBang ("#!"). I've reviewed this distribution twice: once in its 9.04.01 incarnation and again in its version 10 (alpha 2). The website itself says that #! uses Openbox as the base desktop, but I've seen in a couple of forum posts that #! could qualify as an LXDE distribution. Furthermore, releases of #! 8.10.02 and prior used LXPanel (an LXDE panel tool) and Thunar (the Xfce file manager), while releases of #! 9.04 and after have used tint2 (a not-LXDE panel) and PCManFM (the LXDE default file manager). Why again is #! being called an LXDE distribution now?
So what exactly am I getting at here? I feel like the modularity of the LX-tools works against LXDE having a unified identity. When I think of GNOME, I have an intuitive sense of what's included — a GDM integrated with the GNOME theme, simpler GTK+ themes for the desktop and windows, Nautilus being the file manager and controlling the desktop, and Metacity or Compiz controlling the windows. Similarly, with KDE, I can picture a standard desktop made of the nice-looking Plasma desktop integrated tightly with Nepomuk, Akonadi, and Strigi, windows managed by KWin, logins managed by KDM, and files managed by Dolphin. (UPDATE: As an anonymous reader points out, Nepomuk, Akonadi, and Strigi aren't so tightly integrated with KDE that they cannot be run outside of KDE. I stand corrected, but I still say that the way KDE integrates them gives KDE an identity that LXDE does not have.) But what is LXDE then? Sure, it uses Openbox as the window manager, but it faces the same problem Acura had with the Legend — the latter, a subset of the former, was overtaking the former in terms of brand name recognition. (Acura therefore renamed the Legend to the RL to ensure that Acura would be the dominant brand name; with that, sales tanked, but I digress.) Sure, it uses PCManFM, but some distributions use Thunar instead and still call the DE "LXDE". Sure, it uses LXPanel, but quite a few distributions use tint2 instead.
So what makes LXDE? On the one hand, its modularity allows for better customization and easier implementation of its tools in other DEs. This comes at a price, however, and that price is an identity as a unified DE.

Linux Mint Based on Straight-up Debian

I had previously reported on this development in this post. I am here to report that these developments are getting closer to reality.
Yes, folks. Linux Mint is actually making larger efforts to move towards a Debian base. In my previous post, I reported that the new Debian-based Linux Mint was for PowerPC systems and used the LXDE desktop. Well, the fact that the linked article reports that this new version of Mint will use a rolling-release model, will use GNOME, and will be for i386 systems means that the Mint developers are really serious about moving away from an Ubuntu base and towards a Debian base. The screenshots look really nice, the installer appears to be much-improved over the standard Debian installer, and it is supposed to be a lot faster than current (Ubuntu-based) releases.
I'm even more excited about what will happen. Does this mean that the new Peppermint OS will retain the Ubuntu base and the Mint tools, while Linux Mint itself will shift to a Debian base (while retaining all of the amazing Mint tools)?

FOLLOW-UP: Arguments Symptomatic of Occasional Linux Community Dysfunction

In my original article on this, I discussed how Canonical's overbearing nature on distributions derived from Ubuntu is causing those developers to move from an Ubuntu base to something else (usually a Debian base).
A lot of posts on the actual original article on Mark Shuttleworth's comments remarked that it is only a matter of time before Linux Mint (Ubuntu's most popular derivative distribution) would move away from Ubuntu and towards Debian.
Well, folks, I am here to report that these speculations are coming to fruition (at least partly so).
Linux Mint is releasing an LXDE edition for PowerPC-based computers (i.e. old Apple iMac computers) based on Debian 5.0 "Lenny". Hence, this is not given a typical Linux Mint version number as it is not based off of Ubuntu (like the standard Linux Mint releases).
I'm going to guess that as Debian 5.0 is a slightly older operating system (it's about 2 years old), it would provide a more stable and less sluggish base for older computers. However, I would also say that this is a sign of things to come. The Linux Mint developers are also probably developing friction with Canonical, so I would say that eventually the entire Linux Mint project will move over to Debian. I also remember reading somewhere (I think it was DistroWatch) that for the next release, the live CD would be based off of Debian Live (instead of being like an Ubuntu live CD).
In any case, I'm excited to see what Linux Mint has to offer.