Lubuntu, on older computers

A friend of mine had an older Dell Dimension 1100 that was practically impossible to use. It was running a corrupted version of Windows XP home, with 512 MB of Ram, a Prescott Desktop Socket N Celeron processor, and an Intel Corporation 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller. I increased the RAM to 2gb, and tried to install Ubuntu 11.04, but it could not manage the graphics demands, even with the classic Ubuntu interface. I then installed Lubuntu, which is accurately described as "a faster, more lightweight and energy saving variant of Ubuntu by using LXDE, The Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, as its default GUI."

It seems to use the Ubuntu 11.04 repositories, so installing new applications like OfficeLibre is quite easy. I was able to install dropbox without any problem. You might want to add ttf-mscorefonts, to have access to Arial and Times New Roman fonts, or better yet, lubuntu-restricted-extras, which includes ttf-mscorefonts, plus several other things you will want. I also added gedit, the regular Ubuntu text editor, and acroread, the Adobe PDF reader.

This older Dell Dimension 1100 machine now runs very well. It even feels fast, running a range of applications. Based upon this example, I recommend Lubuntu for adding some zip to older slower machines. That said, there may be some issues with some applications. For example, at first, the preview version of Spotify for Linux did not work, although the recent update does. And the print driver support does not seem as deep as for the regular Ubuntu releases, although I was able to use drivers that worked for my own two printers.

I liked what Lubuntu did for the Dell Dimension 1100, so I also installed Lubuntu on an older (2003) IBM X31 portable. The X31 could not run Ubuntu 11.04, so I was using Ubuntu 10.04, an earlier release that made fewer demands on the video card. Lubuntu 11.04 is definitely *much* faster than Ubuntu 10.4 on the X31. Your really have to compare the two to appreciate how much faster Lubuntu is.

Update.

I installed Lubuntu on these machines:

1. Toshiba Satellite 1405-S151 laptop, first bought in 2002. I had earlier quite a bit of difficulty getting the video to work with Ubuntu. Not only does Lubuntu install and work great on the machine, but the video resolution was exactly right, without having to change any settings. This computer is built like a tank, with a nice keyboard and a fairly decent and large screen.

2. A Dell 600m laptop. This is a model that was first offered in mid 2003. This particular one was shipped October 2005. It has the slower Celeron M 1.4ghz processor. To get the internal wifi to work, I had to add, using the synaptic package manager, the b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-installer packages. It actually feels pretty quick.

3. A 2003 IBM X31 portable. This was considered a fairly under-powered machine in 2003. It's better with Lubuntu, but not that great.

4. Dell Dimension 1100. With Lubuntu, this computer is now a fairly decent client, and with the Chrome browser, it feels plenty quick. There is some small problem with the video, that involves black sections at the bottom of the screen or some menus, but it isn't actually that much of a distraction.

5. An Acer laptop, model: Aspire 5516-5474. It came with an ATI video chip set (ATI Radeon Xpress 1200), and an AMD Athion 64 processor (the TF-20). It was not much fun with Vista, or even Ubuntu 11.04. But with Lubuntu, it seems quick. CPUBenchmark of 400.

6. An HP Pavilion 511n Desktop PC, probably bought by someone in 2003. So far, this has been the most challenging install. The computer shipped with only 128 mbs of RAM, and the maximum RAM is only 512 mb, which I had earlier installed. The 511n has a 1.3GHz celeron processor and a pretty slow integrated video processor. It was pretty much unusable with any version of Windows XP. During the Lubuntu install, the mouse did not seem to work very well, and you had to more or less guess where to click, in a workaround that involved moving the pointer way off to the left of where you wanted to point, or using the tab key. Installation pretty much took forever. The boot time took a while, and the mouse did not work correctly, leading to all sorts of problems, and making it pretty much unusable. So, I don't recommend Lubuntu for the HP Pavilion 511n. Update on the 511n: Ok, I read some forums, and found some people had had similar issues, that were fixed when they changed to a higher resolution monitor. I did the install on a 17 inch LDC monitor. I switched to a 19 inch 1440 x 900 monitor, and the problems with the mouse disappeared. I don't know why Lubuntu had this problem, since it was not an issue when I had installed an older version of Ubuntu. I am assuming it is related to the xfce desktop environment. In any event, with the larger monitor, the 511n does work, and is usable, but even with Lubuntu, not that quick. It seems particularly sluggish when browsing web pages, which is, of course, one of the main things people do with thin clients. Bottom line, the HP Pavilion 511n remains a good candidate for the dumpster.

In the Synaptic Package Manager/Settings/Repositories, check the Canonical Partners, and then add:

lubuntu-restricted-extras
lubuntu-restricted-addons
libreoffice
gedit
acroread (the adobe reader)
firefox
gimp
gimp-data-extras
gimp-plugin-registry
skype
xsane