lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[John Webster <civil@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I probably need to repeat my opening comment that I don't want the
Lubuntu team to add anything to the standard installation, for the very
reasons you quote. I'm not that keen on Xubuntu - basically, it now has
so many embedded Gnome components, it's not all that much lighter than
vanilla Ubuntu, and it's certainly not as spare and elegant as Lubuntu.

If individual users, having considered their needs and the capabilities
of the machines at their disposal, want to add other packages from the
vast range available in the repos, that's a completely different issue,
and that's what I thought this correspondence was about. Please accept
my apologies if I did not make that clear.

On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 06:34 +0100, Phillip Whiteside wrote:
> Hi, the devil is in the detail
>         
>         I use Lubuntu to escape the horrors of Windows XP on older
>         machines, and
>         Ubuntu or Kubuntu to avoid the slightly lesser, but still
>         considerable,
>         frustrations associated with Windows 7 on more capable
>         hardware. In my
>         experience, any machine that does a reasonable job of running
>         XP-SP2 or
>         later will have been equipped with at least 256MB of RAM, and
>         more
>         commonly 384MB or 512MB. Such a machine will fly with Lubuntu.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Where as 
>         A Pentium II or Celeron system with 128 Mb RAM
>  
> is what we aim for, you are talking Win 98 machines, they would
> certainly not be able to run XP. A lower spec ubuntu with all those
> bits would be Xubuntu. Heck for the 10.10 of lubuntu there is a
> low-fat version available via the mini-iso, please bear in mind that
> lubuntu is here specifically for low powered machines, if the team
> were to add "this, that and the other" we'd have standard Gnome
> Ubutnu. (I'm only repeating this as we do get told off for saying "I'd
> like this adding...." The Lubuntu project is pretty darn strict as to
> what gets in).
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> 
> Phill.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 5:59 AM, John Webster <civil@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>         Dear Phill
>         
>         I wasn't arguing against the current Lubuntu defaults - they
>         are fine,
>         and entirely appropriate for the mission statement. In fact, I
>         think
>         that the Lubuntu team are doing a great job, which is why I'm
>         here.
>         
>         I use Lubuntu to escape the horrors of Windows XP on older
>         machines, and
>         Ubuntu or Kubuntu to avoid the slightly lesser, but still
>         considerable,
>         frustrations associated with Windows 7 on more capable
>         hardware. In my
>         experience, any machine that does a reasonable job of running
>         XP-SP2 or
>         later will have been equipped with at least 256MB of RAM, and
>         more
>         commonly 384MB or 512MB. Such a machine will fly with Lubuntu.
>         
>         However, IF a particular user decides that they MUST install
>         OpenOffice
>         Impress from the repos, they will pull in a lot of
>         dependencies that are
>         common to other OpenOffice components. Hence my comment that,
>         if you are
>         going to install Impress, you might be just as well to replace
>         Abiword
>         and Gnumeric with the corresponding OpenOffice components.
>         
>         Softmaker Office for Linux is neither free nor open source,
>         but it is
>         lighter and more agile than OpenOffice and delivers better
>         compatibility
>         with MS Office. It installs and runs well in Lubuntu.
>         
>         I certainly don't mean to appear to criticise OpenOffice,
>         which I use
>         whenever I don't absolutely need 100% MS Office compatibility.
>         The core
>         aim of the OpenOffice development team seems to have been to
>         produce a
>         comprehensive and competent office suite, while maintaining a
>         decent
>         level of compatibility with MS Office. Indeed, the
>         compatibility that
>         they have achieved is perfectly adequate for all but serious
>         business
>         users forced to operate in a generally Windows/Mac
>         environment.
>         
>         By contrast, the Softmaker Office team has clearly had the
>         narrower goal
>         of providing three key components that are as close as
>         possible to 100%
>         compatible with MS Office, and selling them for a much lower
>         price than
>         MS charges That Softmaker has taken the trouble to create a
>         version for
>         Linux means that business users wanting to use Linux on the
>         desktop can
>         do so with virtually no hassle, which must surely be a Good
>         Thing.
>         
>         Incidentally, my personal view is that the most elegant
>         presentation
>         application out there, by a country mile, is Keynote. It
>         doesn't make
>         all that great a fist of maintaining compatibility with
>         PowerPoint, no
>         doubt because the Apple development team pursued the same
>         philosophy as
>         the OpenOffice team. In any case, while I'm sure that porting
>         Keynote to
>         Linux would be relatively straightforward, I can't see Apple
>         releasing
>         the source code under the GPL or even making a paid version
>         available.
>         
>         Regards
>         
>         John
>         
>         
>         On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 04:41 +0100, Phillip Whiteside wrote:
>         > Hi John,
>         >
>         >
>         > Which is why I suggested just installing presenter. For
>         Lubuntu  the
>         > mission statement is:
>         >
>         >
>         >         Lubuntu is targeted at "normal" PC users running on
>         low-spec
>         >         hardware. Such users may not know how to use command
>         line
>         >         tools, and in most cases they just don't have enough
>         resources
>         >         for all the bells and whistles of the
>         "full-featured"
>         >         mainstream distributions.
>         >
>         >         A Pentium II or Celeron system with 128 Mb RAM is
>         probably a
>         >         bottom-line configuration that may yield slow yet
>         usable
>         >         system with Lubuntu. It should be possible to
>         install and run
>         >         Lubuntu with less memory, but the result will likely
>         not be
>         >         suitable for practical use. If you have less than
>         160 Mb RAM,
>         >         you will need to use the Minimal installation
>         instructions.
>         >         Please note that especially on lower powered
>         machines (older
>         >         CPU's) or low RAM systems, that the installation may
>         seem to
>         >         'hang' at about 95%, don't worry, it has not; it can
>         just take
>         >         some time (possibly over an hour).
>         > By that deffintion, power point is not going to happen.
>         > The second reason is that all our software is free :-)
>         >
>         >
>         > Installation of sections of OOo are quite easy. What people
>         'do' to
>         > lubuntu is entirely up to them (What some of us have been up
>         > to http://forum.phillw.net/viewforum.php?f=18). If you have
>         look
>         > at http://forum.phillw.net/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=52 you will
>         get an idea
>         > of the differences within the family. Do not forget, as
>         *buntu is
>         > Debian based, you can put on any programme easily.
>         >
>         >
>         > Lubuntu <> Mint
>         >
>         >
>         > Regards,
>         >
>         >
>         > Phill.
>         > Lubuntu == https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu
>         
>         
>         
>         
> 
> 

-- 
Dr John Webster
365 Table Top Road
Bridge Creek
Victoria 3723
Australia

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