Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Xubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx and Linux Mint 8 Helena XFCE



Finally installed a fresh one Xubuntu,but after seeing what features is has I was feeling that I should left the old Linux Mint 8 Helena XFCE (based on Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala).

The first thing Xubuntu lacked was the dial-up connection tool like KPPP or Gnome-PPP so I have to download Gnome-PPP and WVDial on mobile phone and install it on PC. The Network Connections utility doesn't worked for mobile broadband connection. :)

The Installation CD is almost same as Linux Mint 8 ~690Mb,but comparing what you will get with Linux Mint 8 it should be few times smaller. The LinuxMint included most software what Xubuntu had plus Sun Java 6,OpenOffice,Chestnut PPP dialer,audio and video codecs,Firewall configuration,Compiz Vision.

The Xubuntu had just basic software:

  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Mozilla Thunderbird
  • Pidgin Internet Messenger
  • Transmission (BitTorent client)
  • XChat IRC 
  • Abiword
  • The Gimp
  • Evince PDF Viewer
  • Ristretto Image Viewer
  • Exaile Music Player
  • Totem Multimedia Player
  • Gigolo (HDD Mounting tool)
And yeah nothing more special. No sound and video coders since I was unable to play simple MP3 songs and MPEG videos.  There wasn't even a "glxgears" utility to view the performance of video drivers. After installing it the glxgears showed about ~3000 FPS while on Linux Mint 8 I was getting ~4500 FPS with Intel 945GM video card drivers :) After spending whole day I downloaded missing software and now Xubuntu 10.04 tend to be a more useful.

If you would love to have a Windows hard disk mounted on desktop you need to download MountManager.

I would recommend to wait for Linux Mint 9 XFCE based on Ubuntu 10.04  instead of using Xubuntu. :)


You should also check for Linux Mint repositories.

They comes handy when you need a good PPP dial-up utilities like GRPSEC (GPRS Easy Connection) and Chestnut.

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