My new favorite operating system is Xubuntu – its like the light weight version of Ubuntu. If you have an older computer (any computer really) that is getting bogged down, installing Xubuntu would be a great idea. It doesn’t require a lot of beefy processors and tons of memory to run smoothly. For the average computer user it will do everything you need just fine!
I just installed Xubuntu on the 2 older laptops in our house. I currently have Ubuntu on the only desktop we have, but that will be getting changed to Xubuntu soon. Those laptops really smoke now, they boot up and get me online faster than they ever did, even when they were brand new!
I did have a 2 day long battle getting my crappy Canon printer to work over the network with these laptops, but they are both working now. This is not an issue with Xubuntu, in fact the only Windows computer left in our house is the only computer that currently can’t print.
So just tonight I was working on the last laptop up in the living room I’m going through setting and changing stuff around and printing test pages. I look at a website that is admin for the print server and it looks like they are all failing. I eventually decided to re-install Xubuntu (which I had just installed earlier in the evening) to start over. The CD that I had then would not work so I had to download Xubuntu and burn a new disc which is a fairly time consuming project.
After I got everything back up and running again I tried to install the printer. Print a test page and see the same result. So eventually I go downstairs to the printer to see that it had actually been printing just fine all along. Several hours wasted for nothing. I was a little bit pissed off, but also relieved that it was actually printing.
So go check out Xubuntu if you think you have an old computer that is getting slowed down by Windows. It will give your old computer new life!
Xubuntu seems to be the shit! I’ll write more about it some day after I’ve been using it for a little bit longer. There are still 2 things that keep windows on one of my computers – Visual Studio and Guild Wars. I’m gonna try to set up Guild Wars on the Linux computer, but Visual Studio will probably have to stay windows.
