Lightweight Linux That's Both Beautiful *and* Functional

Michael J. Jordan, Managing Editor, Linux Online

March 19, 2007

KDE is, in this writer's humble opinion, the best desktop environment for computers today. It is even better than the almost universally praised Mac OS X. It goes without saying that it is better than any Microsoft product. That said, there is one principal problem with it: At the time of this writing, the latest version KDE is too slow on any machine that's running below a Pentium IV with at least 250 MB of RAM (at the time of this writing). In other words, you can't have eye-candy without bloat.

Now there are a lot of machines out there that are below those specifications, so running them as desktop machines with KDE on them is not going to be the most pleasant experience you've had. But, let's say, you've got this machine. It's, say, a Pentium III. It's a bit old, but it still boots up and it's there for you to use in some way. You could use either one of the two most popular lightweight Linux distributions: Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux. If you're an experienced Linux user, those will both be fine. But there are an increasing number of newcomers to Linux who want to use their old hardware with this new operating system. I, personally, wouldn't recommend either of those lightweight distributions. Though they are fine products, they suffer from two basic flaws: One is the package management. They seem to have their own ways of installing new packages, neither of which used RPM or DEB based systems, which have both stood the test of time.

The second is that the look of the desktop is too outmoded. This cannot be underestimated. The famous truism about cooking: 'A dish must first please the eye to also please the palate' in my experience also holds true when you first present uninitiated to the Linux desktop. If you had a powerful machine, that wouldn't be a problem. The latest version of KDE would make a great first impression. Not so with the desktop managers that the lightweight distributions rely on.

An alternative choice if you're looking for something that's light on resources is Xubuntu. This Ubuntu variant is based around the XFCE desktop, which shouldn't be too much of a shock to people migrating from Windows. I have found, however, that Xubuntu can be a bit heavier than you'd think on system requirements. About the most minimalist I would go without scaring anybody away would be Xubuntu.

XFCE looks like a stripped down KDE. Windows users should be able to adapt to it in no time. You can customize it easily.

[ >> next: Ubuntu + fvwm-crystal ]