[sf-lug] Linux install on Older Laptop (Ubuntu??)

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Blake Haggerty (Blake.Haggerty at Sapphire.com):

[455 MHz PIII laptop, 340MB RAM:]

> Now I think that maybe his machine isn't fast enough for Ubuntu??  So
> I was considering XUbuntu, Has anyone had experience with this?? 

I like Xubuntu on my 800 MHz PowerPC G3 iBook with 256 MB RAM, but your
friend's mileage may differ.

Novice users often favour RAM-grabbing applications and
RAM-and-CPU-grabbing eye-candy, and thus end up needing more of both
than do old fogies.  I hear people talking about 3 GB not being enough
RAM for their desktop boxen, and just shake my head in wonderment.
 
Certainly, most people these days are putting 455 MHz PIII boxes in
dumpsters -- or on closet shelves so as to not face the reality of those 
having become obsolete and lost nearly all their value.  

> What are people experiences with XFCE as a desktop is it missing a ton
> of features?  Is it stable? Is it easy to use??

Works for Me<tm> -- but then my main requirement of a "desktop" system
is that it stay out of my way, not fill up the process table with junk I
don't care about, and let me run (mostly) a few xterms and a Web
browser.  Most of my _real_ computing is done remotely on servers; the
laptop is mostly just a network terminal to run ssh.

My canonical idea of a good "desktop" is just the Window Maker window
manager, which deliberately lacks most "desktop" superset features
pretty much entirely, e.g., no desktop-metaphor built-in file-icon
windows a la GNOME's Nautilus file-browser, Xfce's Thunar, or KDE's
Konqueror.

Of possible interest:  http://xwinman.org/

> Any issues with IPOD management?? 

gtkpod works fine.