lubuntu-qa team mailing list archive

[Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 2013-06-23 07:39, Jonathan Marsden wrote:
> On 06/22/2013 02:43 PM, Nio Wiklund wrote:
> 
>> On 2013-06-22 15:37, Ali Linx (amjjawad) wrote:
> 
>>> I think Phase 1 of testing is done. ...
> 
>>> So, what is next? 
> 
> Testing zRAM on Alternate installs, once it is enabled in them :)
> 
>> I added some testing today for compatibility. I think it is similar
>> to what you Ali and Jonathan have done, very clean and using the
>> whole drive. Then I get results comparable to yours :-)
> 
> Great!  Thanks for the additional testing.
> 
>> 384 for the graphical installer
>>
>> 192 for the mini iso
>>
>> 256(?) for the alternate installer, let us wait and see if it will
>> also get zRAM
> 
> Yes.  I wish we had better luck at 256MB on real hardware with the
> desktop image.  I'm not really sure why it works so well down even below
> 224MB on VirtualBox, but apparently not on real machines.
>
> Jonathan
>

Well, when carefully prepared, the desktop installer worked with my old
custom built computer with and AMD Athlon XP down to the same levels as
yours with VBox. Look carefully at my test results in the table! But in
real life, the situation is often messy, and more must be squeezed into
the memory ...

-o-

Regard the following as a thoughts for future releases beyond Saucy.

A graphical interface will always need much more memory than a simple
text interface. And a well designed text interface can be nice and easy
to use.

Instead of abandoning the alternate installer, I would suggest to

1. incorporate it into the desktop installer, so that when you select
install at the menu, you will never start any graphics, but stay in text
mode. (But this is for future releases beyond Saucy.)

or

2. have one more line in the start menu:

Try Lubuntu without installing
Install Lubuntu (graphical interface)
Install Lubuntu (text interface)
Check disk
Check memory

or

3. give more love to the mini.iso and make it possible to do within the
wizard, what must be fixed afterwards or by escaping to other text
screens in the current version. For example, few newcomers would try

ctrl + alt + F2

to get a second text screen and run bash commands, and they would hardly
continue without a bootloader or with the bootloader in the wrong place
and fix it afterwards.

*. If a person doesn't like text mode, or the computer has enough RAM,
(s)he runs the graphic mode installer from the icon on the desktop of
the live system. I think this is how most people do now, or at least it
is strongly recommended at the Ubuntu Forums to try before installing,
and then they see the icon on the desktop ...

Best regards
Nio