My take / suggestions on linux lite

[chke419]

To have a full modern desktop operating system like Linux Lite, with its preloaded apps, and all the other apps I've added, take up 1/3 to 1/4 of the space of a bare Windows install makes me scratch my head when I hear the word bloatware.  I have a ton of apps installed in my Linux Lite build, and it still takes up 7GB or less on my root partition.  I don't know if it's even possible to do that with Windows and still have it do much.  I guess I have a different idea of what constitutes bloat.

I respect your thoughts and thanks for your reply. I know all these new OS's have grown greatly in size beginning with Vista and up. I had XP 32 bit plus extra software running on a 4 gig thumb drive booting in a ramdrive and 2.5 gig was temporary storage of that 4. I would be still using it if it were still supported but it's not. I am just unsure what will be my next OS. I will say LL is a good change from the 2 dozen disto's I've tried already. I figure I will give Elementary OS a go and possibly give Arch a try also since it's a build your own type distro. I'm starting to think the days of the smaller OS's are all gone especially when I think back to the great Windows 98 SE which was their best in my opinion.

All's I know is I would like to thank everyone for there thoughts and suggestions on here, you've all been very nice. I may be back!

Thanks again and may god bless

[truckerjay]

Arch?  From a windows user to Arch?  Hope you like doing a whole bunch of terminal building Arch.  Get to know chroot very well.  Really learn how to edit config files.  Yes you build arch your way but it's all manual and takes a long time.  Even the install isn't all that easy.  If one really wants to learn the inner workings of linux yes build Arch it's a really good way.  If you don't like the looks of the desktop linuxlite uses you know it can be changed.  I myself prefer fast and light so xfce is one of my favorites plus it's stable.  You could try Mate.  Instead of building Arch you could install ubuntu mini and pick whatever desktop you wish or as much of a desktop as you wish and you get bare bones with only software you choose.  Linux has so many options.  But what I found here at Linuxlite is a light fast OS with just a touch more than I would put in it.  It still is small on the hard drive takes very little resources to run.  It is very stable.  Currently on the 2.8 Beta for the last few days and I have had no problems with it.  Haven't even logged into 2.6.

[Valtam]

Thank you for your comments chke419. Some people complain there are too many distros out there. This is one of those examples where choice is a necessity. Arch is a challenge, but a rewarding one once you start and at the end of the day, you'll have exactly what you want.

[firenice03]

But this is what I am looking for in the OS of my choice. Yours does come closer to what I look for then the one's I've tried so far.

If anyone does know of a linux distro that is closer to what I look for please feel free to add a comment.

Thanks for your time and consideration,

The OS of your choice ... That gets a little complicated; and please know I'm trying to convey personal experience and information I've gained to help...

• Skill level (ease of use) - How comfortable are you with Terminal and command line
  
• Look/Feel - Vibrant colors and exciting graphics - can systems hardware run or is lighter better
  
• Support (forum or other) - will there be a response
  
  

Then other factors how much effort/time to keep stable (every update having to re-modify), peripheral support and on and on...

Which Linux? Ubuntu, Debian or Red Hat or a derivative....
Its a long (long) list  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Li...tributions and its not all of them...

I've tried a few distro's and being a Windows guy I understand the "look", Clear Type fonts, shadows under folders etc etc.
I started with Mandriva (2011) in a VM I didn't use it much it looked nice as does Linux Mint and even PCLinuxOS. Mint and PCLinuxOS have multiple variations;
Mint - XFCE, MATE, Cinnamon
PCLinuxOS - LXDE, MATE, Full Monty
I found this to be confusing; Windows Home or Pro(for the most part) now all these others???

I'd install Oracle VirtualBox, spin up a VM or two or six  ;D and install. Especially the different desktop environments XFCE versus MATE versus ?? ?? ??

Why I chose Linux Lite - I'm new to Linux, most drivers worked and those that didn't, the good folks here directed me and quickly for that, worked great on older hardware.
I revived my XP based netbook - I have a nitche for it. My printer worked with minimal effort whereas Windows ended it's driver with Win7 32-bit.
The PC's running LL are stable 99% of the time; wife and kids can get on do what they need and do it in the GUI (that other 1% is when I'm playing/learning)

If you find Linux Lite's stability, ease and forums the winning factors and the "look"still eh/blah ???, look at the Artwork Section; Artwork, Backgrounds and Screenshots you may see something a user posted that you like...

Again, I'm new with all that is Linux; I googled "How to make XFCE look better" this link besides it being the 1st  shows a good example of the different facets of the environment that can be tweaked/fine tuned to your liking.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-18699...odern.html

Best of luck in your search

[truckerjay]

I agree with you Jerry on Arch.  I have built it.  I have built from ubuntu mini.  However I keep coming back to debian based.  And I really like linuxlite has everything I was trying to build and more and still is slim, stable and fast.  I still play with other distro's on USB drives.  And have both 2.6 and 2.8 dual boot on hard drive.  As for trying to become windows I left windows a long time ago never looked back all that eye candy cost speed and it seemed you had to buy bigger and bigger computers to run it.  Always froze up.  Why would I want linux to emulate that?  Ease of use linuxlite is going in the right direction imho.

Nice post firenice03 you have a good understanding of why each person has different needs in a distribution.

[chke419]

Well I did try Elementary OS and it was nothing of what I wanted. Yes it was flashy but to me it was more of a kids distro piled with gadgets. I am 50+ years old and the eyes aren't what they used to be. I have also noticed that it seems allot of people for some reason love dark themes at least for linux. I've also noticed that most default system tray icons are generally the same as LL gray on gray and nearly unreadable. The world of computing has changed for certain. At least windows saw then need for colored icons in the system tray and used lighter colors for the bar and offset the colors for minimized running software. Linux loves the gray on gray or gray and black look. So it's a big fat NO for Elementary OS especially with it's larger install.

Since I've been off playing with other distro's I've read the many more replies and thanks so much for your suggestions. The reason for my reasoning of trying Arch was mainly just to see the base size of what I would use in a linux environment without all the bloat. After that I will know for myself what is indeed the minimum. I know hard drives are so much bigger then in the old days but my preferences have never changed, lighter/smaller is always better as long as it's very stable. One thing certain, I will not be running any linux in a 1.5 gig compressed disk image as I did with XP into a ramdrive which is very depressing to me. I loved that setup as I could just reboot and I had a new install of my OS which is nice for getting rid of cache, lso's or piles of built up logs ect without touching a thing plus for trying out new apps.

Now as for the hoard of linux distro's out there ......... all's I can say is OMG is it ever overwhelming. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I now see why major software companies refuse to make software for linux. And trust me when I say there are some softwares out there I wish they would make for linux such as East - tec eraser,  CCleaner and O&O Defrag. Some may argue that linux doesn't need it but I know better, East-tec does a military wipe and both CC and East - tec even cleans system logs, cache, lso's and so on. O&O is mainly a defrag program but it also does 1 thing more it didn't plan on doing and that's showing files on a drive that you can't see otherwise. Those programs are golden among others. But this is more off topic and oh how I could ramble on.

Back to the hoard of linux distro's .......... by what I have seen so far linux needs to get rid of allot of these distro's and work more on making linux better instead of spending it's time splitting off in so many directions. The one's that are truely unique keep and the rest put back for a rainy day. Like I said earlier, people actually got tired of the same ole look of MS Windows over so many years but I have never heard anyone say anything bad about the readability of the bar/desktop. Colors do make a difference in certain circumstances when things are small to begin with but again adding colors to add life doesn't hurt either hense that is why folks changed from black and white tv's to color ones.

Lord I feel like I'm writing a book so off I go to try out Arch. It probably won't be what I hope but I will know the minimum install when I'm done.

Again, take care and god bless and thanks so much for your inputs.

[chke419]

One last thought I forgot to add to the book I was writing above. Linux vs Windows 7 and up install size then I agree Linux is smaller. Linux vs XP install size then obviously I disagree especially with the result after stripping it down. And those whom say more is better obviously hasn't used every tool made available in Windows 10 daily because I could never or would ever want to. Some might argue I am a minimalist but I take it as a complement.  ;D

[Wirezfree]

[size=1em]
"trust me when I say there are some softwares out there I wish they would make for linux such as East - tec eraser,  CCleaner and O&O Defrag. [/size]

[size=1em]

Regarding:
East - tec eraser, depends to what standards you want to clean disk/files, HD and/or SSD, and if you intend to re-use the disk..??, take a look at "DBAN"
or give it to a 5 year old they can destroy anything.. ;D

CCleaner, nearest I have used is "Bleachbit" in the Synaptic package manager.

O&O Defrag, well there's many a debate on Defragging Linux, general consensus, typical day to day user's not necessary... But if you want to:

Defragging:
To check fragmentation:
[/size]

Code:

sudo e4defrag -c /<location> check

[size=1em]
To Defrag:
[/size]

Code:

sudo e4defrag -v /<location> defrag

[size=1em]

In relation to your general comments/observations...
"Beauty(Appearance) is in the eye of the beholder"

I had been a long time windows user, since Win 2.11, although dropped Win ME after a week, stuck with 98, then used XP from 2001 till 2014, [/size][size=1em]avoided Vista/Win7[/size]
Started to try and use Linux in 2014, and many, many trials later I settled on Linux Lite, and never looked back,
[size=1em]but my usage is probably different than yours.?? (( I do still have an image of my "N-Lited XP" available in VBox ))[/size]

[size=1em]For me, It is stable, it's lite on resource, no bloat or eye candy, and it covers 99% of what I need
If I could get a MS Visio replacement, it would be 100%, nearest I have found is DIA

[/size]

[gold_finger]

@chke419,

Beginner-friendly distros like LL are created with the "average" computer user in mind.  "Average" meaning people who use a computer for basic things like web surfing, storing/viewing photos, listening to music, watching movies, creating the occational spreadsheet or document, etc.  (Plenty of others also use LL, including people with many years of Linux experience.  But they are not the target audience so to speak.)  Most average users are not very technically inclined and don't want to have to tinker with things to get them to work.  They may be very proficient at using programs that they are accustomed to, but many won't be particularly knowledgeable about installing/re-installing OS's, partitioning drives, installing and learning new software, etc.

To alleviate as much stress as possible, LL and others like it will typically include software that is mature, well-supported, has broad appeal, and easy to use.  That way newcomers can usually be up and running and be able to do 75% or more of what they want to do with a only a minimal learning curve at first.  For example, LL provides four (off the top of my head) very popular programs that many people are already familiar with in the Windows world:  Firefox, Thunderbird, VLC Media Player and LibreOffice.  They work the same way in Linux that they do in Windows.  There's no learning curve and people will immediately feel some level of comfort with their new OS.  In time, as they get used to the system and how it works, they will learn more, try out other software and further tweak the system as needed.

You may not want/need any software pre-installed.  You may think of them as "bloat".  But you are not the common user being targeted.  For every one of you there are probably 50-100 people who are very happy to have the software that is included.

There are literally thousands of software packages available in repositories for installation.  Most of them have strange names that give no clue as to their function.  Expecting someone unfamiliar with Linux to start with a bare-bones install, requiring them to sift through and figure out which weirdly-named software packages are needed, would not go over well.  They'd last maybe 10 minutes before giving up and vowing never to look at Linux again.

[Lynne]

This topic got me to login and have a bit of a say too.

I am one of those new to Linux people to whom @gold_finger refers. I've only been using it (Ubuntu and some of those derivatives) for about 4 yrs and I felt like I'd come "home" when I first installed LL and set about having a look at it. I was very impressed and that is saying something for me because I don't impress easily. I also tweaked it to how I want it to look. I use most of the included programs (bloat in your words @chke419). I have read quite a lot of this forum's posts and learnt a lot on the way. I even went back and looked at the Help Manual and learnt how to install an iso file to a usb stick. Wow!

Yesterday, I had a look at Slack64 - Puppy, and boy, is it full of itself!

Sorry, @Jerry, but I wasn't all that impressed with LL 2.8 so will stick with this version till you get into the ver 3 series and look at it all again.

The fact that LL includes popular programs such as one would find in Windoze is a boon, IMO. None of the other so-called popular programs are as usable or as stable, and believe me, I've looked around.

So, @Jerry et al, I am enjoying LL 2.6 and all it's popular programs. Thank you very much.

Lynne ...

ps. @chke419 - you did know that you can make the font bigger to read, and change the size of the icons on the panel, and make the panel bigger too? Oh, and you can also put a background to the panel if you choose - solid colour, transparency and image to make it truly unique to you!  ;D