LXLE 14.04 Review: The best LXDE distro I've used till date

LXLE's USP in previous releases used to be Lubuntu with long term support, as Lubuntu didn't have a LTS spin till recently. And hence, the acronym LXLE from Lubuntu eXtra Life Extension. However, in 2014 with Lubuntu itself releasing an LTS version, I wanted to check how LXLE can entice users to continue using it over Lubuntu. As Ronnie Whisler's release notes states, it is time for the distro to evolve:

"LXLE acronym change, originally 'Lubuntu eXtra Life Extension' which made sense before Lubuntu had an official LTS release, since 14.04 however, LXLE will now adopt the nomenclature 'LXDE eXtra Luxury Edition' and we think this release doubles down on that; to better support 32-bit hardware we updated 12.04.4 to be virtually identical to LXLE 14.04 64-bit release including features, updated software and system components; PCManFM additions such as open directories and text as root, create shortcuts, rename base icon names, copy to folder, right click desktop trash to empty; Launch (Fehlstart), Run (Gexec), and Terminal (RoxTerm) all have hotkeys enabled to open them using the keyboard for faster access...."

From LXLE 14.04 http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.com

On 14th June, 2014, LXLE released it's 64-bit spin, LXLE 14.04. There is no 32-bit spin yet. I guess I can understand the reason why these days even lightweight operating systems prefer 64-bit OS over 32-bit. Just check any e-commerce site for low budget laptops, you'll see the market is flooded with Windows 8 laptops under $500 with Intel Celeron/Pentium/Atom processors and under 4 GB RAM. I could not install 32-bit version in Secureboot and UEFI enabled systems. However, 64-bit worked with elan. Possibly, these distros are targeting users who bought these modern low powered systems but will soon get tired of Windows 8's crazy desktop and switch to Linux. I know quite a few people did it, even I did it myself!

Anyway, coming back to the topic, I downloaded the 64-bit ISO, about 1.5 GB in size. I created a live USB with Linux Mint Image Writer and booted it on my test laptop, Asus K55VM. LXLE 14.04 ships with LXDE desktop with Linux kernel 3.13.0 and PCManFM 1.2.0bas the default file manager. It is based on Ubuntu Trusty Tahr, the recently released LTS spin with 5 years of support. I am not sure if the support on LXLE 14.04 is also 5 years just like it used to be earlier or is it 3 years like Lubuntu 14.04.

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LXLE 12.04.4 Review: Much more than a lightweight distro!

While using LXDE for last one week or so, I noted that I haven't reviewed a single LXDE distro for last 4 months. The last LXDE distro I reviewed was Lubuntu 13.10 32-bit edition. In between I refrained from trying out LXDE distros, possibly waiting for LXDE-Qt to release sometime in 2014. However, when the 4th update of LXLE 12.04, the LXDE distro with 5 years of support, got released in Feb, I couldn't resist myself. This is perhaps the best LXDE distro I've ever used and somehow I never managed to find time to pen down a review on it! Now I am making up for it.

From LXLE 12.04.4 http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

For this review, I downloaded the 64-bit ISO of LXLE 12.04.4. As mentioned, it is a LXDE distro with long term support (LTS), based on Ubuntu Precise Pangolin. The Lubuntu 12.04 didn't have support for more than 18 months and hence, LXLE has the advantage of longer support (5 years, till April, 2017), over Lubuntu. Unlike Ubuntu Precise, LXLE ships with the Linux kernel 3.2.0 (Ubuntu Precise now has kernel 3.11.0). The release note states of the following improvements:
"After patiently waiting for Ubuntu to officially announce their 12.04.4 update and once the number of seeders of LXLE grew to an adequate level to 'serve' it, LXLE 12.04.4 has been released. This particular release builds on the idea that many 'at idle' processes can be replaced by 'on demand' solutions, such as weather, battery, updates, power management, etc. It also introduces microcode kernel updates for your processor and preload, a readahead daemon, by default. Notable new features: LXLE PPA enabled by default; updated core LXDE components; updated BleachBit, Catfish, MiniTube; updated Elementary icon set; added Steam, VokoScreen, Schedule Tasks; GNOME Commander replaced with Sunflower; Fast Forecast replaced with Typhoon; GDiskDump replaced with Startup Disk Creator; enhanced Firefox and bookmarks toolbar...."

I used my Asus laptop K55VM with 2.3 Ghz Core i7 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM and 2 GB NVIDIA GeForce graphic card as the test machine. First I created a live USB using Unetbootin and then used it to live boot & finally install on the Asus laptop. I'll take you step by step the experience I had with LXLE in the subsequent sections.

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