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Upgrading Ubuntu? - Oedipussy Rex - 04-27-2014
I have been using a flavor of Ubuntu Linux exclusively for -- has it been seven years now? We'll call it 7+/-. Even before Canonical opted for Unity over Gnome Shell or Gnome 3, I had switched to XFCE mainly because I wasn't very fond of Nautilus, which had a tendency to bog down when changing directories, especially when a directory had more than ~1,000 files (yes, I often have directories with more than 1,000 files in it), and the lag only got worse when the files were pictures, pdfs, videos, or any mime-type for which Nautilus would create a preview. So of those 7+/- years of Ubuntu, all but maybe two were with Xubuntu, with short two-hour to two-day stints checking out the progress of Unity before deciding that nope, I don't like it.
Until today. Today I've decided that with one of my two "new" laptops, I'm going to give Lubuntu a try with its PCManFM and OpenBox WM. I'll be putting it on the HP Pavilion dm1 mini laptop I got from my sister when the TrueCrypt she had put on the hard drive at the boot level got borked. (Not only was nobody going to get at her files without knowing the password, no one was going to get any further than BIOS.) With a duo-core AMD-64 (2x800mhz) processor and 3gb Ram this 10"-screened, screwed up keybinded, (the f1-f12 keys have the multimedia functions as the primary, so when you press f2 the screen dims, so you have to press f3 to brighten it then fn+f2 to pull up the name-change dialogue, and don't ever forget to press fn before f12 unless you don't mind turning off the wifi), mousepad-and-buttons-in-one pain-in-the-ass was the most powerful computer I'd ever owned for the next two weeks when the <$400 Toshiba laptop I had ordered came in.
So yeah, I'll be loading a relatively lightweight OS onto a relatively powerful (by my standards) computer, then removing almost all of the user applications in favor of more robust versions (like LibreOffice over Abiword and Gnumeric). We'll see how it goes.
Well, so much for that. The Lubuntu installer had no way of logging into the wifi network that I could see (this laptop doesn't have a lan port), plus I couldn't change the keyboard. I use Dvorak, not that piece-of-goat-excrement qwerty. Seriously, I'm a poor enough typist as it is, I don't need the added frustration of having to look for that goddamn j or k or u or whichever letter that is never in a logical place. I mean, why do they bother calling it the home row if you never spend any time there?
So it looks like I'll be installing Xubuntu again. Maybe I'll look into changing the desktop packages after the upgrade.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Kersus - 05-02-2014
Why LibreOffice?
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Oedipussy Rex - 05-02-2014
I like it. I'm used to it. .pdf export. Any half-decent word processor can import their files without issues. It's Open Source. Because Microsoft can suck my ass. (And by the definition given above, MS Word is not a half-decent word processor. It can't even import Word documents from different editions of Office without issues.)
Or do you mean, "Why LibreOffice over Open Office?" Because it's in the repositories.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Kersus - 05-02-2014
Yeah, that last thing.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Oedipussy Rex - 05-03-2014
There's also the whole Sun Microsystems/Oracle kerfuffle that would make me install out to LibreOffice if the repositories switched to Apache Open Office.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Kersus - 07-30-2016
After installing OpenSuse today, it struck me how little Linux has advanced in the last decade or two. Sure, it looks prettier but the install is just not something a lay person could do.
I went with KDE although i'd like to try Xfce.
Anyhow, I'm going to see if it rejuvenates my budget laptop.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Oedipussy Rex - 07-30-2016
"Anyhow, I'm going to see if it rejuvenates my budget laptop."
KDE? Maybe not. Xfce? Likely. LXDE? Undoubtedly. Openbox, Definitely. Ratpoison? And how.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Kersus - 07-31-2016
Well, I dislike GNOME (although haven't tried it in years - last was Ubuntu - not a huge fan of Debian but maybe I just got sick of it over years since I loved Xandros (Corel Linux) at one time). I thought about Xfce this time, but I'm doing a Linux course to brush up and didn't want to add learning a new GUI. After the course would be a good time to try.
OpenSuse sees the laptop as an AMD dual Core with 3.3 GiB of RAM. My newest and least powerful computer.
It boggles my mind that 20+ years ago, dual cores went obsolete and quad core+ became standard for reasonable prices. Now it's hard to find quad core without spending a fortune - especially if you want RAM that can actually run Windows properly. The computers I sell now, were obsolete 10 years ago. The tech industry is completely failing at innovation and I blame capitalism.
I have an old desktop from somewhere around 2003 that was mid-low end that blows all my newer hardware out of the water. In fact, even the top end laptops I've sold this year pale in comparison to what I sold 10+ years ago.
Anyhow, Linux..... I simply hope OpenSuse/KDE will make this laptop, which is useless with Windows, usable. I think I can do pretty much everything I want through Suse. I have a laptop set aside to run QuickBooks, Expression Web, Steam; another to do my media; and a NAS to hold all the data. Essentially Linux is an attempt to make a worthless new laptop, of some worth.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Kersus - 08-03-2016
(04-27-2014, 03:31 PM)Oedipussy Rex Wrote: So it looks like I'll be installing Xubuntu again. Maybe I'll look into changing the desktop packages after the upgrade.
Did you eventually move to LXDE. I wouldn't mind adding something to switch back and forth from KDE. Anything but GNOME.
RE: Upgrading Ubuntu? - Oedipussy Rex - 08-03-2016
No. I just stuck with xfce. It's what you might call being lazy.