Fuenteovejuna did it

Sometimes I get restless and have to play with things.

All is well. Everything is running smoothly even though I tamper with it endlessly.

After running Debian on the "big computer" since March of 2011, I decided tonight to swap it out for Lubuntu, which is Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop. Debian with LXDE still remains happily on the little netbook.

Some reasons for the big-box OS swapout:

• Gnome has become a RFPITA, that includes ALL forms of Gnome.
• Debian's LXDE is COOL, but Lubuntu is sexy and pretty right out of the box.
• For the shallow geek-lite, like me, glamour on the desktop is important, so that points to Lubuntu.

My uneducated, quick, shallow, biased assessment of common desktop environments:

• KDE - couldn't stand it anymore after Plasma.
• Gnome 3 - RFPITA.
• Gnome 3 Fallback - Still a RFPITA.
• Unity - Romper Room, totally.
• Xfce - the biggest lie there ever was: "It aims to be fast and low on system resources." Ha! I betcha find Xfce to be heavier than Gnome or KDE. Thanks, Josh Phelps, for helping me come out of the closet on this one.
• LXDE - The only one that behaves itself and runs fast as lightning. So simple and visually appealing that you might start to have impure thoughts about it. Totally hot!

I might reverse myself on all this tomorrow, but for now it stays.

Why swap out an operating system? "If it feels good, do it."

Running smoothly, as usual.

I've about beat this to death, but I finalized the operating system and configuration on the new Acer netbook (the one on the left below). I decided to make it identical to my older Sylvania: Lubuntu Natty Narwhal 11.04.

Prior posts:

• netbook pair
• two netbooks dirt cheap

Lubuntu, LXDE/Openbox desktop, runs like a dream on both and is light as a feather. Also, it is simple, elegant, easy on the eyes, and is easy to configure to leave maximal desktop space for a small netbook screen.

I noticed this about the desktops I tried:

• Gnome Unity - digs at the swap, plus some issues with running slow and sometimes freezing, though I do like the overall idea, and it's pretty!
• Gnome Classic - touches the swap sometimes.
• LXDE - never touches the swap.

One minor Lubuntu tweak, I installed maximus, which helps with auto-maximizing and undecorating windows, and set maximus to autostart with the desktop boot:

sudo leafpad /etc/xdg/lxsession/Lubuntu/autostart

add @maximus to the other processes listed in that file.

Below are pictured the dueling netbooks. The new Acer Aspire One is on the left, and the two year old Sylvania Meso G is on the right. The Acer has Opera (Unite) running, and the Sylvania has the Chromium browser.

I always install three browsers on all my computers: Opera, Chromium, and Firefox.

During the Lubuntu install, the proprietary Broadcom STA wireless driver is suggested for the Acer, but the free driver works fine. The only difference I can tell is that the free driver does not illuminate the wifi light on the LED panel, but otherwise I can find no issues with it.

Below are the two sweeties:

Left: Acer Aspire One PAV 70, D255E-13639.
Right: Sylvania Meso G, GNET28001.

I wanted to reconfigure the hard drive partitions on the netbook anyway, so I thought I'd stick Debian on there to see how it was. With Debian, the usual install procedure is to download a small image, then the rest is downloaded during the installation. To make it interesting, I jacked in my new phone as the net connection. The installer picked it right up and sucked down the data.

While I enjoy Debian on my desktop machine, it's not as ready-to-go on a netbook as Lubuntu is, so I ended up putting that back on later.

All is well in the land of Android/Debian/Lubuntu.

To the left of the netbook screen you can see a Lady Gaga CD. It's getting a bit out of hand. We're trying to friend some of the dancers on Facebook.

Best thing to do while installing Linux: drink a beer. It's been a tradition here for ages.