Xubuntu 8.10 - Review
Why Xubuntu?
Well, in keeping with my need for speed and my love of the Xfce desktop, my next partition filler is Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex.
What do I need day to day?
I like speed and stability, punto. To be honest I find Gnome and Kde do not live up to my perception of speed, so I choose Xfce and Fluxbox. Maybe too minimal for some people, but i am happy with the command-line, can hack the config files to suit my needs, and have spent a few years shaping my general distro setup. I only have apps and features which complete my daily tasks.
Does Xubuntu offer what I need?
Basically yes. And that is a surprised yes. Why? because I always found Ubuntu to be less than what it’s fanbois profess, I would say “meh!” to the latest hype that came with Ubuntu’s latest 6-monthly-offering, and continue tweaking Dreamlinux and Arch.
What about Xubuntu 8.10 specifically?
To be honest, I am blown away with its progress. The changes in the look, feel, and performance are quite considerable. Now I am not anti-Ubuntu, just anti-hype, so for me to say that Xubuntu is good, surprised even myself.
What Hardware was used? (This box was built to be Linux-Compatible)
Hewlett Packard 781 Tower
Nvidia Geforce fx 5200 (128Mb)
Conceptronic Wireless Atheros AR5212 (works with ath_pci and ath5k)
Athlon Xp 2000 cpu (1.6 Ghz)
512Mb Ram
The Test
I downloaded the Live CD, did the customary Md5sum check, burned the iso with Graveman on Arch Linux at 4X speed to a Verbatim 700MbCD-R.
Reboot with the Xubuntu CD in my Dvd drive, and waited for the usual choices;
Run the Live CD
Install directly
etc
Ok, the live boot wasn’t super-fast, but acceptable. The login screen was slick, I like the new design, it has a polished look.
I have a routine once I get to the desktop, a very clean, nice looking desktop by the way. It has an Xfce/Gnome hybrid look about it. Every distro I have tested (with exception to Mandriva 2009) gives me a desktop which is about 1 cm to the right due to not having the Nvidia drivers installed. This always happens with the “nv” driver. But of course, due to Ubuntu’s free software policy, there is not going to be a proprietary driver from the get-go. I hope that Canonical and the Ubuntu devs decide to change this in the future.
Order of all my distro tests:
1. Network:
Having only a wireless connection, this better work! Or the cd gets thrown. Harsh I know, but this is 2008, and I am not going to resort to the commandline unless it’s a distro I really, really want up and running. I clicked on the network-manager nmapplet and saw my usual list of ESSID’s, clicked on the one I wanted and entered my Wep key.
Bang! We’ve got wireless access.
2. Nvidia:
I know Ubuntu, so I went to “Applications > System > Hardware Drivers” and clicked open the box. There it was, my Atheros wireless card already locked and loaded, and Nvidia just waiting to be activated. So that’s what I did. It downloaded, it installed, it advised me to restart. I did and there was my desktop as it should be. Now, when I make changes to the liv CD session, I am accustomed to them being saved, and kept for the install (aka Dreamlinux), I later found out that this wasn’t the case with Xubuntu and I had to install Nvidia again.
3. Install:
Well, the usual, click the desktop “Install” icon, and the Ubiquity installer popped up. I will admit, I don’t like the Ubiquity installer. I am impatient, and need things done now. Ubiquity is slow. (The entire install took over half an hour!). But anyway, enter my language and keyboard yaaaawn. Then the partitioner comes up. WTF?! What’s this? I ask myself. That’s slick looking.
Want some screenshots? Yeah, course you do 
Too be honest, I just want to click on my preprepared partition and get the install on its way, but the look of the partitioner is so sweet I just had to take a couple of screenies.
Ok, so I sellected the partition, went throught the motions and set it to install. The install was slow, half an hour at least, but there ya go, as I commented on my Mandriva test, I really don’t care any more as long as it gets the job done cleanly.
So first boot, as I said before, no Nvidia, pffft! had to do that again, but anyway, no biggie, and then connected to the newtork which I already said was ok, and then I was notified of a few updates, so I installed them and was done with it.
Here I am running Xubuntu, Ubuntu for chrissakes!, me, Ex-Debian, Archlinux, Dreamlinux fanboi Lol!
Conclusion
Very nice, very nice indeed. I am not sure (after looking at Top) whether this would truly run well on a 128Mb Ram system, but it certainly runs well on mine.
The look is plain enough to be uncluttered, and slick enough to not be the Xfce default theme. Everything I have works out-of-the-box, and I am very impressed.
I would most definitely recommend Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex to newbies and experienced users alike. I’ll keep you posted with tweaks, hhacks and updates as I think this will be staying on my box for a while.
Incidently, it just overwrote the Mandriva partition, Ooops! Sorry Mandriva fella, Kde isn’t my taste (still) and I have a need…. a need for speed.