





Xubuntu 12.04 LTS: Could this be the Right Unity Alternative for Netbooks?

There were actually two lightwieght distros based on Ubuntu that caught my attention, namely Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Lubuntu is a much newer distro when compared to Xubuntu. To me, Xubuntu felt like a more mature distro with robust userbase. So I finally decided to give it a go. Negative publicity around Ubuntu Unity and GNOME Shell is proving to be a real blessing in disguise for a bunch of smaller, lightweight distros like Xubuntu, Lubuntu et al. As much as I like Unity and GNOME Shell, they are not really the ideal choice for under-powered devices like netbooks. So what else is there? Wouldn't it be like icing on the cake if their is a lightweight distro which is based on Ubuntu 12.04 itself? Let's review Xubuntu.There were actually two lightwieght distros based on Ubuntu that caught my attention, namely Lubuntu and Xubuntu. Lubuntu is a much newer distro when compared to Xubuntu. To me, Xubuntu felt like a more mature distro with robust userbase. So I finally decided to give it a go.

Installation was all easy, thanks to Ubuntu's new hugely improved installer called Ubiquity, which can now be safely regarded as *the* best out there. Each step in the process is very well defined and the wizard will take you through the required steps without too much hassle.





One of the first things that attracted me to Xubuntu 12.04 was the amount of time it took to boot. It was a good 8-10 seconds faster to boot when compared to vanilla Ubuntu 12.04 LTS in the same Intel Atom processor powered Acer netbook. But both the distros were not upto my expectations either. While Ubuntu 12.04 took an unimpressive 33-35 seconds to boot, Xubuntu 12.04 took about 25-27 seconds.



May be I should not expect anything better from a single core 1.66 GHz Intel Atom processor. May be I should try something even lighter. I am not sure. Anyway, Xubuntu 12.04 fared much better when compared to Ubuntu 12.04. Even the time it took to 'reach' the desktop from login window was way better with XFCE powered Xubuntu 12.04 LTS.





Usability:



If you were a genuine fan of good old GNOME 2.x UI, Xubuntu 12.04's XFCE desktop will pleasently surprise you. In terms of usability, especially when your PC don't have high-end processing and 3D acceleration capabilities, Xubuntu 12.04 can be a real saviour. It is blazing fast. XFCE desktop basically has a GNOME 2-ish looking dropdown menu, top panel with widgets support (you can add/remove widgets at will, like in the old days), and two workspaces by default. Just try switching workspaces (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + right/left arrow keys), there won't be no fancy visual effects, but it gets the job done and fast, really fast. If you were a genuine fan of good old GNOME 2.x UI, Xubuntu 12.04's XFCE desktop will pleasently surprise you. In terms of usability, especially when your PC don't have high-end processing and 3D acceleration capabilities, Xubuntu 12.04 can be a real saviour. It is blazing fast. XFCE desktop basically has a GNOME 2-ish looking dropdown menu, top panel with widgets support (you can add/remove widgets at will, like in the old days), and two workspaces by default. Just try switching workspaces (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl + Alt + right/left arrow keys), there won't be no fancy visual effects, but it gets the job done and fast, really fast.