Ubuntu Linux has millions of fans. What’s not to like? A

free operating system with ten thousand free applications, websites covering everything you might

ever want to know, tutorials, active forums, and more. Yet for all these benefits, situations pop up when you want a

faster, lighter operating system. Perhaps

you have an older computer, or maybe a netbook or

a mobile device. Wouldn’t it be great

to have a lightweight Ubuntu?

That day has finally arrived. Lubuntu offers a way to stay in the Ubuntu family — with a product that performs better and uses

fewer resources.This article details how Lubuntu differs from Ubuntu. It also compares

Lubuntu to other lightweight Linuxes. It focuses on Lubuntu 10.04,

which is based on Ubuntu’s 10.04 Long Term Support release.

(Lubuntu 10.10 is the latest release, with 11.04 due out

at the end of April.) Sample screenshots

follow the article.

The Criteria

Before we start, here’s where I’m coming from. As per previous articles

in this series at OS News, my interest in lightweight operating systems

stems from my activity in refurbishing computers for charity. The best

software for this purpose is:

Resource light — charitable donations are between five and ten years old

— charitable donations are between five and ten years old Easy to use — recipients use donations with little or no training

— recipients use donations with little or no training Easy to install and configure — volunteer labor doesn’t like complexity or wasting time

— volunteer labor doesn’t like complexity or wasting time Free — charities don’t have money to buy software

— charities don’t have money to buy software Open source — commercial licensing agreements unduely restrict install and distribution procedures

— commercial licensing agreements unduely restrict install and distribution procedures Good support — this is why I favor the LTS (Long Term Support) releases in the Ubuntu family

In future OS News articles, I’ll review competing low-end distros like Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux. All my reviews judge by these criteria.

How Lubuntu Differs From Ubuntu



Lubuntu changes Ubuntu in three major respects to become a faster,

lighter

system:



replaces

GNOME 1. The LXDE graphical interfacereplacesGNOME 2. Default daemons and services are paired down to the minimum 3. Faster, lighter default applications replace Ubuntu’s default applications

Let’s discuss each of these techniques.

LXDE — The graphical user

interface or GUI is the most resource-intense component of consumer

operating systems. Lubuntu tackles this challenge head-on by using as

its default the Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment or LXDE. LXDE replaces

Ubuntu’s easy to use but resource-hungry GNOME.

LXDE uses less memory than GNOME for typical workloads. Its twenty or

so components are loosely integrated, so they can run independent of

one another, saving resources. The Openbox window manager

is especially important from the resource standpoint. This

comparison

of popular window managers shows that Openbox yields a full range

of features at a very modest resource cost.

From the usability standpoint, LXDE is less sophisticated than

Ubuntu’s GNOME desktop. But it’s nearly as easy to use. You can

still add desktop icons, panels, panel applets, and the like.

And you can quickly customize your desktop. The first time I used Lubuntu, it only took me a few

minutes to alter its default interface to my preferred style.

Minimal Daemons — You can

configure either Lubuntu or Ubuntu to start up whatever daemons or

services

you prefer. By default, Lubuntu starts many fewer than Ubuntu.

You can view the Lubuntu startup applications by entering:

Start -> Preferences -> Desktop

Session Settings -> Automatically Started Applications (Tab)

The equivalent under Ubuntu is:

System -> Preferences -> Startup

Applications -> Startup Programs (Tab)

In older Ubuntu releases you can also look under the “Services” panel:

System -> Administration -> Services

By pairing down Ubuntu’s default startup programs, Lubuntu boots

lean and mean. You can always add additional services if you need them

by navigating to the panels referenced here.

Lighter Applications —

While Lubuntu uses less memory than Ubuntu at idle, where you really

see

its utility is when you open many applications concurrently. Since the

apps require less memory than their Ubuntu equivalents, the cumulative

effect is a faster, more performant system.

I especially like the file manager, PCMan, an LXDE

component. I’ve found it

visibly faster than Ubuntu’s Nautilus on older computers, with their

limited memory and slow PATA/IDE hard drives.

GNOME Office

replaces Ubuntu’s OpenOffice, so Lubuntu comes with

AbiWord and Gnumeric, instead of OpenOffice Writer and Calc. Lubuntu

bundles no equivalent to Ubuntu’s presentation tool, OpenOffice

Impress. Lubuntu also includes the handy Osmo

personal organizer and calendar.

The theme of lighter apps runs throughout Lubuntu — Leafpad replaces

Ubuntu’s Gedit, LXTerminal is included instead of GNOME Terminal,

Sylpheed handles

email instead of Evolution, and the Xfce4 Taskmanager tracks

performance instead of

Ubuntu’s System

Monitor.

In a move that has inspired controversy in web forums, Lubuntu uses Chromium

as its default browser instead of Firefox. To me Chromium seems a

bit faster than Firefox on low-end computers. Its clean,

simple, intuitive interface certainly fits the Lubuntu emphasis on ease of use.

Of course, if you prefer Firefox or any other application that is not bundled with Lubuntu, you can easily

install it. Lubuntu uses the same Synaptic Package Manager and accesses

all the same software repositories as Ubuntu. So you could start out

by installing Lubuntu as a small, efficient operating

system, then cherry-pick critical Ubuntu apps you

require from

the shared repositories. You’ll get the quick system you want without the

overhead of the applications and daemons you don’t need.

Resource Use

Lubuntu’s goal is efficient resource use. So let’s measure it.

Lubuntu bundles the Xfce4 Taskmanager

for measuring resource use, instead of Ubuntu’s System Monitor. Linux

line commands like free, top, vmstat, and

df can also be handy.

Let’s look at some numbers:

Download

File Size: Disk Install: Memory Use: Ubuntu

10.04 686 m 3 – 5 g 110 – 250 m Lubuntu

10.04 521 m 1 – 2 g 60 – 130 m Puppy

5.1 130 m 500 – 1000 m * 30 – 120 m Damn

Small Linux 4.4.10 50 m 200 – 300 m * 25 – 100 m

* For a “full install.” A “frugal install”

requires about the same space as the download. All measurements are by the author.

The size of the disk install will vary, depending on the apps you add

to

the base system. In rough terms

it’s fair to say that an Lubuntu

install consumes one-third to one-half of the disk space used by

Ubuntu. Want an exact number?

It varies by user, product release, and

what you add to the base install. The only way to get exact

numbers is to measure disk footprints for your own systems.

Lubuntu generally uses about half the

memory of

Ubuntu. But be careful again:

memory measurements vary because we’re talking the size of the

operating system plus loaded apps (we exclude the buffers or cache used

by the OS). Obviously this number could be all over the map depending on

the applications you start. And, how you use them. The numbers I list above reflect my

own typical use of these systems. Your numbers will vary depending on

your use of your computer.

If you collect your own measurements, you’ll immediately find

that certain apps eat up way more memory than others. For example,

browsers are famously ram-hungry. The more tabs you open, the more ram they eat. So if you compare memory use between

Linux distributions, open functionally-equivalent apps (and the same

number of tabs in the

browser) from a cold startup.

In my experience the upper

range of real memory used by Lubuntu corresponds to the lower end of

what Ubuntu consumes. Almost anyone

will find that Lubuntu uses

dramatically

less memory than

Ubuntu.

I added Puppy 5 to the chart as a directly competing product from

outside of

the Ubuntu family. I found Lubuntu’s memory use to be roughly similar to Puppy’s,

though Puppy uses less at initial load and at idle. Puppy has a much

smaller download file and installed disk

footprint.

I also added Damn Small Linux to the chart to bracket the numbers on

the low end in the same way that Ubuntu brackets them on the high end.

Comparing Lubuntu to DSL is really like comparing apples to oranges.

DSL uses way fewer resources. But it bundles fewer apps and doesn’t

offer anywhere near the same ease of use as Lubuntu. DSL is a great

tool for hobbyists and IT professionals, but it isn’t suitable for untutored computer users like Lubuntu.

My Experiences

I’ve had Ubuntu 8.x and 9.x running on five P-III’s and four P-IV’s

since those releases came out. Ubuntu

10.04 disappointed me on this older equipment. Due

to video issues it

didn’t

install, out of the box, on any

of the five P-III’s. It installed

successfully on all the P-IV’s but one, a Gateway Profile 4 All-In-One

PC. I eventually got Ubuntu 10.04 to run on all these computers but

it took some geeky tweaks. OS News readers could certainly implement these

techniques. But they are probably beyond skill of the average

computer consumer.

Lubuntu 10.04 installed right out-of-the-box on the three P-III’s I

still had access to. No tweaking required. It also ran immediately on

all of the P-IV’s, including the Gateway Profile 4.

I conclude that while Ubuntu runs great on P-IV’s, with

version 10.04, it finally leaves

P-III’s

behind. This makes sense because P-IV’s have been out since 2000

and P-III’s stopped production in 2003. Lubuntu appears to

pick

up the slack for P-III’s and may be a good alternative. Lubuntu will

run on systems with down to 128M of memory, but to install

it from Live CD you need at least 160M. (See the system requirements for details.)

I’ve really been impressed by Lubuntu’s snappy responsiveness on older

computers. The contrast to Ubuntu is noticeable. The personal rule of

thumb I’ve developed about when to use

Lubuntu versus Ubuntu is this:

For P-IV’s or better with 512 M or more of DDR-1 memory, go with

Ubuntu

For P-IV’s with lesser memory, and all P-III’s, go with Lubuntu

If you have an old machine in your attic or basement, Lubuntu is a

great tool to revive it and make it useful again.

In my tests Lubuntu provided a

nice, responsive system on all the old computers listed below. Machines

like these have little to no resale value and you can often pick up them up for free from friends, family, co-workers, Freecycle, or Craigslist. Pretty

amazing that Lubuntu makes them all useful, when you think about it!

Processor: CPU

Speed: Memory: Disk: P-III 550 mhz 512 m (PC-100) 20 g (PATA/IDE) P-III 933 mhz 256 m (PC-133) 40 g (PATA/IDE) P-IV 1.5 ghz 512 m (PC-133) 40 g (PATA/IDE) P-IV 2.4 ghz 768 m (DDR-1) 160 g (PATA/IDE) Celeron 2.6 ghz 1 g (DDR-1) 120 g (PATA/IDE)

From the standpoint of charitable work, machines like these are valuable to

those who have no computer otherwise. (One

in four Americans do not own a computer.) They also make good secondary

machines for large families that have more kids than computers. I

know IT professionals who keep their old P-IV around as an

emergency backup if their current computer fails.

Lubuntu

fulfills an important role in the PC ecosystem. While these computers have virtually no resale value they still

provide value if placed and used appropriately. If you have

computer up to ten years old you don’t use, please donate it

to a charity like FreeGeek that will reuse it. Recyclers will only destroy it, then recycle the raw materials.

Comparison to other Lightweight Linuxes



Some web sites promote Xubuntu as a light alternative to Ubuntu. Xubuntu uses the XFCE interface

instead of GNOME and it bundles lighter apps than Ubuntu.

During the

8.x and 9.x releases I ran several benchmarks pitting Xubuntu against

Ubuntu. While Xubuntu generally used less memory than Ubuntu I wouldn’t

characterize the difference as significant. Xubuntu’s memory advantage

was small enough

— usually 0 to 20 m — that I wrote off Xubuntu as a tool to revive

older systems with too little memory to run Ubuntu.

This Linux Magazine article comparing Lubuntu,

Xubuntu, and Ubuntu reached the same conclusion. The Wikipedia article

on Xubuntu summarizes the situation by stating that “Testing has

concluded that Xubuntu 9.10 beta’s RAM usage actually is greater than

Ubuntu’s 9.10 beta with GNOME.” So

while Xubuntu is an excellent system, it didn’t contribute towards my goal

of making computers useful that are too resource-limited to run

Ubuntu.

U-lite is another possibility.

Like Lubuntu, U-lite is based on Ubuntu. It employs LXDE and bundles lightweight applications

into the base system. I didn’t test U-lite mainly because there

appears little possibility that it will become an official member of

the Ubuntu family. The project was originally called “Ubuntulite” but

changed its name following a communication

from Canonical Ltd. that the name violated Ubuntu trademarks. In

contrast, Mark Shuttleworth, Canonical’s founder, personally invited the Lubuntu

project to start up. The prospects appear

excellent for Lubuntu to become an official member of the

Ubuntu family soon.

(For example, you can already mark your question as pertaining to

Lubuntu in the official Ubuntu forum.) U-lite may be an excellent distro but it fell out of scope for this project.

Puppy

is an innovative light distro that consistently places among the top dozen

distros according to the popularity rankings at Distrowatch. Puppy

automatically loads completely into memory, and runs solely from there,

on any computer having 256 M or more. This eliminates slow disk and

CD/DVD access and speeds system performance.

Puppy’s resource consumption is less than or equal to Lubuntu’s, as shown in the chart. Puppy

achieves all this with ease of use I’ve found sufficient

for end users (as long as the system has been installed and configured

for them). I’ll review Puppy next month.

From the perspective of computer refurbishing, both Lubuntu and Puppy

are great candidates. It’s nice to have choices!

Older Computers?

One question I have about Lubuntu is whether it will run on computers

under 500 mhz that still meet its system requirements. This encompasses

Pentium II’s, early Celerons, and even some Pentium I’s.

Competing

distros take specific measures to support these older machines that Lubuntu

does not. For example, Puppy supports a “retro kernel” release in

parallel for each new version. You can run Puppy with either the retro

kernel or a current kernel. Damn Small Linux still uses the 2.4

kernel and offers the SYSLINUX boot loader for systems that can not

boot

ISOLINUX.

In

the worse case, if the current release of Puppy or

DSL won’t boot

on your old computer, you can go back and try older releases

through

five or six years of product evolution. I’ve sometimes

had to resort to this to pick up support for older devices. You can’t

do this

with Lubuntu. It’s new and was first released in 2010. To my

knowledge, it’s not specifically tested on old computers that it could,

theoretically, run on from the standpoint of system requirements.

What this means is that there are really two kinds of lightweight Linux

distributions. Some specifically support older computers, while others

offer current software for reasonably current machines that just happen

to be resource-light. I suspect that Lubuntu fits into the latter category.





If any readers have tried Lubuntu on sub-500 mhz computers please

share your experiences with us by posting a comment. Did Lubuntu boot without tweaking? Did it recognize your old

devices? Please post experiences with Lubuntu on

netbooks, too. I had only a single netbook to try it on and it worked fine.

Thanks for your feedback.

Ubuntu Means “Change” in Bantu

Does “Ubuntu” mean “change” in Bantu? Well, actually no. Ubuntu is named for the south African concept of “humanity towards others.”

But

in terms of operating system compatibility, Ubuntu does mean Change.

One of the Ubuntu family’s big advantages is that it quickly

capitalizes on new

technology. These are fast-moving distros. The downsides are occasional

incompatibility or disruptive change across releases.

In the last two years, the Ubuntu family has moved from the GRUB boot loader to

GRUB 2, to continually changing networking management tools, to eliminating

the xorg.conf configuration file and moving to RandR for video. Lately I’ve heard they may replace GDM with LightDM, move to more regular updates, replace X.org with Wayland, switch the user interface

from GNOME to Unity, and replace OpenOffice with LibreOffice.

These are changes to Ubuntu, not

Lubuntu. But Lubuntu follows Ubuntu and this philosophy of rapid change is fundamental to the Ubuntu family.

So consider your needs carefully when evaluating Lubuntu. Do you need rapid updates and improvements? The

Ubuntu family does a superior job in providing them. Or do you crave

stability and backward compatibility? In this case you may find

Ubuntu’s constant push for new technology and features annoying or burdensome.

Lubuntu Is a Winner



Lubuntu successfully extends the Ubuntu family to limited-resource

computers. I love its responsiveness on five to ten year old machines! The Lubuntu

team has clearly done an excellent job in figuring out how to preconfigure a

leaner, meaner Ubuntu.

While

Lubuntu is a faster, lighter alternative to Ubuntu, you still

get all the important Ubuntu benefits — the thousands of downloadable

applications,

the forums, the helpful websites,

the wikis, and more. You can get the best of both worlds by installing

Lubuntu, then adding any extra applications you need from the

Ubuntu software repositories.

If you

seek a resource-light, well-supported Linux, Lubuntu could be your solution.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –



Howard Fosdick (President, FCI) is an independent consultant who

specializes in

databases and operating systems. His hobby is computer refurbishing as

a form of social work and environmental contribution. You can reach him

at contactfci at the domain

name of sbcglobal (period) net.



Previous Articles on

Computer Refurbishing





Lubuntu 10.04 Screenshots





The Basic Screen

The initial Lubuntu desktop has no icons. Like Windows, the system menu

always

starts from the lower left-hand corner of the screen. (With LXDE — unlike XFCE or JWM — you

can’t right-click anywhere you like to bring up the menu.) This

screenshot

shows the Accessories bundled with Lubuntu:

Memory Use is Low

In this example I’ve opened mtPaint, AbiWord, Gnumeric, the Xfce4

Taskmanager, and the Chromium browser with three active tabs. Total

memory use:

114m. Wow!

The File Manager

The PCMan file manager replaces Ubuntu’s Nautilus. I’ve found it runs visibly

faster on slow computers. PCMan is an LXDE component. By

default Lubuntu dynamically mounts all partitions on all disks. This is consistent with Lubuntu’s excellent ease of use.

Monitoring System Resources

The Xfce4 Taskmanager is a comprehensive but easy-to-use tool for

managing system resources on a low-end box. It replaces Ubuntu’s System

Monitor.

Synaptic Package Manager

Lubuntu uses the same Synaptic Package Manager as Ubuntu. Here I am

searching Synaptic while trying to figure out how to take screenshots

by looking for an

appropriate package to install, since none is bundled with Lubuntu.

Turns out I

didn’t need to download anything. Lubuntu has the scrot line command. I used this

command to take all the screenshots you see here, with a delay of 10

seconds and the top

quality of

100%: scrot -d 10 -q 100 -u