Xubuntu on a diskless laptop
After trying several different USB-installable linux distros, I am currently using Xubuntu on my Gateway MX6920. It seems to be working quite well.
Criteria for my linux distro selection were:
1. preferably Debian-based; I use lots of different applications, and didn’t want to deal with doing builds (e.g., as I would routinely need to do for a Slackware-based system) or finding out that there were issues with some of the apps I wanted.
2. USB-bootable; the distro must install to a USB drive – preferably 2 Gb or smaller. This would allow me room to expand on a 4 Gb drive, which are cheap!
3. small desktop environment; XFCE or similar. KDE eats too much memory for my tastes in the restricted environment I’m using. Gnome is a bit smaller, but is growing.
4. preferably preinstalled or easily installed OpenOffice suite. Although most of the linux distros easily accommodate OO, I was hoping somebody had optimized an install to one of these small systems.
I previously tried Linux Mint (http://www.linuxmint.com/), which I found to be a reasonable system. Unfortunately, Linux Mint didn’t work very well on my laptop. In particular, I had problems with the WiFi – sometimes it would work, and other times it wouldn’t. I never did sort out why. I just moved on…
…to DreamLinux (http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/). I liked DreamLinux. It had a decent array of applications, and seemed to work pretty well with my laptop… until the darned WiFi started acting up again – in the same way the Linux Mint had. Sounds like a driver problem, eh?
Since I had some prior exposure to Ubuntu, I decided to give Xubuntu a try (http://www.xubuntu.org/). So far, this is my preferred system.
So, why all this USB stuff? I acquired the laptop with a blown hard drive. Being too cheap to purchase another drive, I decided to experiment with the system a bit. I removed the drive completely, and started messing with live CDs instead. Unfortunately, CDROM drives are slow, noisy, and they eat battery.
So, I went to the next step – boot from a USB stick. I found my battery life increased from 1 1/4 hours out to about 3 hours compared to the liveCD approach. And, the system boot fast (45 seconds) and runs fast.
So far, I’m happy with this new toy. Time will tell whether I stick with Xubuntu, or see what else there is out there. And, of course, I can always just load up a different USB stick and give my laptop multiple personalities.
Feel free to comment on my system or yours!
