Lubuntu is a very popular distro, especially for people looking to revive their older computers. In fact, my brother uses 14.04 LTS on his old IBM Thinkpad X32. Although the new 15.04 release is mostly full of minor improvements and bug fixes, I thought I’d review it as it will be the last LXDE-based release, as the team is getting ready for the shift to LXQt.
1. First impressions and ease of use
The live ISO is 690 MB and can be downloaded from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/releases/vivid/release/. So we have a fairly standard LXDE desktop, simple but elegant, and it feels traditional, but not entirely out of place among today’s modern desktop environments.
One thing that is fairly annoying is the lack of a search function in the menu, but only because I’m used to that. The feature would only be useful anyway if you had a lot of apps, but since Lubuntu’s target audience is owners of older computers who wouldn’t install many apps because of their underpowered hardware, this is mostly a non-issue.
Otherwise, Lubuntu’s default desktop is very reminiscent of Windows 9x.
Ease of use score: 9/10
2. Installer
Lubuntu uses the same Ubiquity installer as straight Ubuntu and most of its variants, which is in my opinion the best installer software in any Linux distro. So again, I’ll only leave some screenshots.
Installer score: 10/10
Release date
|
ISO size (GB)
|
Distribution base
|
Default filesystem
|
Install time
|
Boot time
|
Size of install
|
Desktop RAM use
|
Kernel Version
| |
KaOS 2015.02
|
2/24/2015
|
1.4
|
Independent
|
XFS
|
18:03
|
0:36
|
4.6
|
415
|
3.18.7
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Beta 1
|
2/25/2015
|
1.1
|
Ubuntu Vivid (15.04 Beta 1)
|
ext4
|
12:57
|
0:27
|
4.2
|
457
|
3.19.1
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
2/6/2015
|
1.4
|
Arch
|
ext4
|
11:33
|
0:27
|
4.7
|
351
|
3.16.7
|
Netrunner 15
|
2/16/2015
|
1.9
|
Ubuntu Utopic (14.10)
|
ext4
|
16:20
|
0:41
|
6.4
|
714
|
3.16.0
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
11/4/2014
|
4.4
|
Independent
|
Btrfs (used ext4 because of known bug)
|
15:29
|
0:39
|
4.4
|
422
|
3.16.6
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
2/17/2015
|
0.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
5:50
|
0:34
|
2.2
|
348
|
3.16.0
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
11/29/2014
|
1.4
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
8:45
|
0:42
|
4.5
|
343
|
3.13.0
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
3/22/2015
|
2.6
|
Ubuntu Trusty (14.04 LTS)
|
ext4
|
20:54
|
0:47
|
7.4
|
745
|
3.13.0
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
2/6/2015
|
1.7
|
Fedora 21
|
ext4
|
13:24
|
1:04
|
5.0
|
602
|
3.18.3
|
Fedora 22 Beta
|
4/21/2015
|
1.3
|
Independent
|
ext4
|
10:10
|
0:46
|
4.2
|
843
|
4.0.0
|
Lubuntu 15.04
|
4/24/2015
|
0.7
|
Ubuntu Vivid (15.04)
|
ext4
|
11:55
|
0:22
|
2.4
|
216
|
3.19.0
|
Average of all distros
|
1.7
|
13:12
|
0:38
|
4.8
|
524
|
3. Design
As mentioned above, Lubuntu looks very current and not out of place, but it doesn’t adopt the flat design trend that many desktops, not necessarily just Linux distros, are. Personally, I think this would also help the lightweight nature of the distro.
I also started to make some customizations. Above uses the Compass icon theme and Prime wallpaper by Nitrux. I also added a Plank and used the Numix window borders:
Again, being GNOME based, you can pretty much use any theme you want, and customize away if you don’t like anything.
Design score: 9/10
4. Applications
Lubuntu adheres strictly to the “light applications only” rule.
Web Browser - Firefox
File Manager - PCManFM
Email Client - Sylpheed
Text Editor - Leafpad
Image Viewer - Image Viewer
Terminal Emulator - LXTerminal
Music Player - Audacious
Office Suite - Abiword+Gnumeric
Although the RAM usage is important, many of these apps are substandard. This is especially a problem considering that Firefox, no doubt a quality web browser, is heavy and something lighter could have been used, such as Midori. So I dock points for not leaning either towards only light applications or only quality applications.
Applications score: 7.5/10
5. Installing packages
Thankfully, there is a category-based software center available (thanks to +elbachy88 for pointing this out). It's called Lubuntu Software Center and it's simple and intuitive to use. Sadly, I don't have a screenshot, but it's a joy and a pleasure to use.
Installing packages score: 8.5/10
Final thoughts
Lubuntu is definitely a better choice than Bodhi for a light Linux distribution. However, as the most popular of its category, I would have expected its application selection and ease of use in installing packages to be better.
Final score: 44/50 = 88%
Distro name
|
Final Score
|
Manjaro 0.8.12 Xfce
|
99
|
Ubuntu MATE 15.04 Beta 1
|
97
|
Linux Mint 17.1 Cinnamon
|
95
|
Fedora 22 Beta
|
94
|
openSUSE 13.2 KDE
|
93
|
Korora 21 Cinnamon
|
92
|
Pinguy OS 14.04.2
|
91
|
Netrunner 15
|
90
|
Lubuntu 15.04
|
88
|
Bodhi Linux 3.0.0
|
84
|
KaOS 2015.02
|
80
|
Average of all reviews
|
91
|
I think you miss Lubuntu Software Center, the distro has a newbie friendly installer
ReplyDeleteHonestly I missed that. I'll go back and update it.
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