On Mon, Mar 01, 2010 at 11:30:21PM +0000, Steve Fosdick wrote:
On Fri, 26 Feb 2010 10:54:52 +0000 Simon Royal simonroyal@live.co.uk wrote:
Hi I am a big fan of Ubuntu. It got me really interested in Linux and gave me the push to leave Mac and Windows behind. I had Ubuntu 9.10 running on a Samsung A10 1.1Ghz Duron and loved it, then the laptop died. I then was given an IBM ThinkPad 600 and after running a few ' lightweight' distros have been quite impressed with Xubuntu 9.10 on it.
I have not tried Xubuntu so I cannot comment on whether it would use more or less RAM than Ubuntu.
What maybe worth knowing though is that Ubuntu in general is based on Debian. Each flavour of Ubuntu selects a subset of the packages to install as standard and in some cases applies a layer of polish to what you would get if you installed the same set of packages from Debian.
With Debian, each of the desktop environments are separately installable and can even be installed alongside each other so you can choose when you log in which environment you get. Obviously having them all installed uses more disk space but should not use more RAM.
I can't say if you can do the same directly with the Ubuntu flavours but it may be worth a look as a way of trying alternatives without having to re-install each time.
Yes, you can, I have recently installed (for example) both the KDE and the default Gnome desktops on an Ubuntu 9.10 system. Each has a 'meta package' which installs what's needed for that environment. You get offered the alternatives at login time.