Comments on The Perfect Desktop - Xubuntu 12.10 (Quantal Quetzal)
This tutorial shows how you can set up a Xubuntu 12.10 desktop that is a full-fledged replacement for a Windows desktop, i.e. that has all the software that people need to do the things they do on their Windows desktops. The advantages are clear: you get a secure system without DRM restrictions that works even on old hardware, and the best thing is: all software comes free of charge. Xubuntu uses the lightweight XFCE desktop environment.
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Nice introductory article. I have expanded a few points.
Xubuntu presents a traditional computer desktop environment for those of us who do not like the newer style desktops that emulate a cellphone or tablet multi-icon, "no useful menus" desktop.
Xubuntu's desktop, Xfce, is a relatively "light" program so it runs well on older computers (such as my built in 2002 single core Athlon) but the demand that many modern web pages make on your machine may cause a really old computer to have problems when you are trying to access modern feature rich web pages. That is not a problem of the operating system itself but a computational limitation of an elderly computer.
As the author mentioned, you can download a "live" .iso file and burn it to a CD and run Xubuntu from the CD alone until you decide if you want to commit to putting it on your machine. You can also install it as a dual boot with Windows although that is a bit tricky to do the first time so make sure you read up on how to do it.
Also Canonical, the Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Edubuntu/Lubuntu, etc, parent company releases its updates in two formats - Long Term Support and cutting edge releases.
Quantal Quetzal 12.10, until April 2014 is a short term support release
Precise Pangolin 12.04 LTS, until April 2015 is the current long term support release.
I would suggest getting Precise Pangolin Long Term Support initially until the next long term release candidate comes out. The long term releases are numbered with the .04 Here is a link:
http://xubuntu.org/getxubuntu/
page down to the Precise download link on this page.
As with almost all operating systems, when upgrading to a later release it is a good idea to carefully read the upgrade directions and make sure you have backed up important files. This precaution is not needed for your basic day to day updating of programs from the notification icon even though its message says "upgrading system".
I would strongly recommend WINE which allows MANY windows programs to be run directly in Xubuntu without having to fool around with a virtual machine such as VirtualBox. Since I started using Linux WINE and its commercial (although inexpensive cousin CrossOver) have been greatly improved and recently the majority of the Windows programs I have needed to run have run under WINE or Crossover.
Also the file manager, gnome-commander, which is a two pane file manager with the ability to link to remote accounts is very useful.
It should be mentioned under Programming that Xubuntu, as with most Linux installs, comes with perl, python, php and a number of other programming languages already installed. In addition adding new programs either through the Ubuntu Software Center or via the Synaptic Package Manager is very easy and since the programs are coming from a secure archive you do not have to worry about introducing malware or about the complex installation methods that used to be characteristic of Linux installations.
There is even a automatic "notification of updates" icon that is part of the install.
I have been running one version or another of Linux since 2000 and I have yet to have any problems with malware appearing on my Linux computer although I have had to go and help rescue my roommate's windows computer at least two times in the last 3 years.
If you decide to venture into Linux the major distributions maintain forums (for Ubuntu see: http://ubuntuforums.org/ and its relatives such as Xubuntu: Xubuntu.org/help/ ) and there are a great many on line local Linux Users Groups (such as NOVALug in my area) which are excellent communities for support.
Some other useful tools available through the Program Manager to have:
GParted for disk partitioning
FSLint - for searching out duplicate files. Very useful because it does not search on file name but on other characteristics of the file.
Screenshot - takes a picture of your screen. I find it useful for recording receipts in a more compact for than as a saved web page.
Sensor Viewer - keeps track of the temperature of your harddive, video card, etc.