PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE Review: Fast, attractive and easy to use Lightweight rolling release distro

Of all the desktop environments I have used till date, LXDE definitely ranks among the most efficient ones. Just to give a proof of how much it is efficient than other desktop environments, I have used till date 13 LXDE distros and their combined average RAM utilization is ~ 116 MB (all 32-bit OS), to load the default desktop with task manager running. LXDE consumes less than half of the resources what a normal KDE 4.10 or a GNOME 3.6 distro would consume under similar conditions. Further, it is 44% more efficient than it's nearest rival XFCE 4.10. 

Desktop Environment	Average  Ram Usage (MB)	# Of OS reviewed
E17	100	4
Openbox	108	7
LXDE	116	13
Gnome 2.32	134	5
XFCE 4.8	137	9
Mate 1.6.0	147	2
XFCE 4.10	167	13
Mate 1.4	187	5
Mate 1.2	199	2
Cinnamon 1.4	200	1
Cinnamon 1.8	209	2
Cinnamon 1.6	214	3
Gnome 3.6	248	8
KDE 4.10	255	4
Gnome 3.4	279	5
Gnome 3.8	280	1
KDE 4.8	295	11
Unity	311	4
KDE 4.9	337	11

Still LXDE is not the most popular desktop environment. Even personally, I prefer to use a KDE over LXDE though I know that LXDE is more resource friendly. The reason is plain and simple - customization in LXDE is not as easy as in other desktops. For example, adding an application to autostart in LXDE requires me to hit the terminal; whereas in other desktops, I just add another application to autostart by the click of a mouse. Similarly, the settings manager in KDE and GNOME are integrated but not in LXDE. Even enabling compositing is not an easy task in LXDE. Also, the desktop is so bland! Many users prefer not to tamper with the default desktop settings and hence like desktops which are attractive right from the first boot!

If you see the number of distros I reviewed for KDE, GNOME or XFCE outnumber LXDE distros. ROSA and Comfusion came to be attractive LXDE distro but didn't have the functional elements that I mentioned. The rest were plain vanilla LXDE with the missing attraction factor. Even Linux Mint didn't create an LXDE spin for quite sometime (I guess the last one was Linux Mint 12 LXDE). However, the PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE spin made me hopeful about LXDE. PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE is attractive, it is fast and very easy to use! Plus, it has a rolling release. 

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

The release note of PCLinuxOS states of some exciting new additions to the LXDE spin:

"PCLinuxOS LXDE 2013.06 is now available for 64-bit, as well as 32-bit systems. Features: Linux kernel 3.4.49 for maximum desktop performance; full LXDE desktop; NVIDIA and ATI fglrx driver support; multimedia playback support for many popular formats; wireless support for many network devices; printer support for many local and networked printer devices; addlocale allows you to convert PCLinuxOS into over 60 languages; LibreOfficeManager can install LibreOffice supporting over 100 languages; MyLiveCD allows you to take a snapshot of your installation and burn it to a live CD or DVD...."

I downloaded the 32-bit PCLinuxOS LXDE ISO and it is about 640 MB in size. Luckily it still fits into a CD as I was unable to create a live USB out of it. PCLinuxOS 2013.06 comes with Linux kernel 3.4.49 (Don't worry about it, PCLOS is a bit slow in accepting the latest Linux kernels or the latest apps!) and has LXDE as desktop with PCManFM 1.1.0 as the default file manager. 

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Unlike previous PCLOS releases, Unetbootin didn't work for me this time - the desktop won't boot. Even Linux Mint Imagewriter and PCLOS Imagewriter didn't work. I had to burn a CD and install PCLOS on my Asus K54C laptop with 2.2 Ghz Core i3 processor and 2 GB RAM. My review is based on the experience I had on my laptop but some of the screenshots (bootsplash and login window) are from a separate installation I did in virtualbox.

Aesthetics
LXDE possibly never looked so aesthetically pleasing. It is shiny and very refined starting from bootsplash to login window to the desktop. The default desktop looks like XFCE or GNOME 2 with the menu at the lower panel. The LXDE wallpaper choice is an excellent one. There are other cool wallpapers in the wallpaper section but the default one is the best one.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Compton is the compositing manager and it is good for subtle effects. One cool effect that I liked is the transparency of windows in the background. First time I used compton and found it to be good, actually better than xcompmgr.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Refinement of PCLinuxOS is evident as well from the application interfaces, which is an area generally neglected by a lot of distros.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Hardware recognition
PCLinuxOS LXDE detected my Wifi, LAN, touchpad and screen resolution automatically. Even for touchpad, vertical scroll and double tap for right click worked right from the first boot.

Applications
PCLinuxOS LXDE has some basic applications pre-installed, viz.

• Office: Abiword, Evince PDF view, Foxit reader, Calculator, LibreOffice installer
• Internet: Firefox 21, gFTP, PCLOS Knowledge Base browser, Pidgin, Sylpheed, xChat IRC
• Graphics: GIMP 2.8.4, GPicview, ImageMagick, Screenie, XSane – Scanning
• Multimedia: DeaDBeeF , GMixer, PCLOS FLV/MP4 Player, XCFA, UM Player
• Accessories: Leafpad editor, File Roller, Simple Burn, Bleach it, HP & Epson Printer Manager, Terminal, Root terminal

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

I would say, it is a decent list for an LXDE distro. Adobe flashplugin is pre-installed and so are multimedia codecs.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

A significant addition is LXDE Control Center - an integrated settings manager for LXDE! I haven't seen it earlier in any LXDE distro but I agree, my experience with LXDE is limited. Unlike GNOME or KDE settings manager, it is not a single frame. But, still it is better than not having any integrated settings manager. And yes, even autostart is present in the LXDE control center!

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Installation
PCLinuxOS installation is the same as before and hasn't changed much. It begins with location to install OS & grub, followed by installation of the OS. It takes about 10 min. to install. Upon rebooting, user ID requires to be created. It is very simple except for the first step, preparation of the hard disk. However, it is not daunting and should not be difficult to any user familiar with gparted.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Repositories
PCLinuxOS has it's own repositories from where applications are to be downloaded. It is fairly rich in apps, though slow to accept the latest version of applications. On the other hand, the benefit is that the version of apps available to users would be fairly stable. Apps can be browsed and downloaded via Synaptic package manager.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

I faced a bit of rough time on the first day of my testing as some of the repository mirrors were not working. From Synaptic package manager, I had to select different mirrors to update and download packages. Luckily, Settings -> Repositories, had all the mirrors listed there by default. Otherwise, changing mirrors would have been a bit messy.

I downloaded Gnumeric spreadsheet and Chromium browser after changing repositories without any issue. All the dependencies were automatically resolved and apps worked as expected after download. Later, I downloaded even Google Chrome (not Chromium), it is also present in the repository.

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

Performance
With compton settings on, PCLOS LXDE consumed about 1-5% CPU and 129 MB RAM to load the default desktop with task manager running. It is slightly higher than what I encounter normally in LXDE distros. But, they are mostly plain vanilla and no compositing working. That possibly justifies PCLinuxOS consuming slightly higher RAM. 

From PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE http://mylinuxexplore.blogspot.in

  

Operating System	Size of ISO	Base	Desktop	Linux kernel	CPU Usage	RAM usage
Bridge LXDE	547 MB	Arch	LXDE	3.6.7	1-5%	80 MB
Debian 7 LXDE	648 MB	Debian	LXDE	3.2.0	1-5%	80 MB
Lubuntu 13.04	720 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.8.0	1-5%	103 MB
Comfusion 4.1 LXDE	882 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.2.0-29	1-5%	110 MB
Peppermint OS 4	588 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.8.0-25	1-5%	110 MB
Lubuntu 12.04	722 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.2.0-29	1-5%	119 MB
Lubuntu 12.10	726 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.5.0-17	1-5%	123 MB
Fedora 18 LXDE	686 MB	Fedora	LXDE	3.7.2	1-5%	124 MB
Fedora 17 LXDE	619 MB	Fedora	LXDE	'3.3.4-5	1-5%	127 MB
PCLInuxOS 2013.06 LXDE	642 MB	PCLinuxOS	LXDE	3.4.49	1-5%	129 MB
Peppermint 3	562 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.2.0	1-5%	130 MB
Zorin 6.1 Lite	672 MB	Ubuntu	LXDE	3.2.0	1-5%	130 MB

Apart from RAM-CPU numbers, PCLinuxOS LXDE is buttery smooth to use, blazing fast and very stable. Except for mirrors not working initially, I didn't face any other issue in my use of one week or so. It performed amazingly well on my machine and at least two times faster than Ubuntu 13.04 with Unity 7.

Overall
Definitely PCLinuxOS 2013.06 LXDE is going as a production distro in one of my systems, from now on. It is fast, attractive and highly functional distro - a rare combination for LXDE! PCLinuxOS is quite well known for stability and the LXDE spin too retains the same virture. It has simplified LXDE a lot and I hope other distros will follow the suit as well pretty soon. 

PCLinuxOS LXDE is very easy to install and use even for a Linux novice. Low resource consumption and speed, I guess, will appeal to the more experienced users. Plus, it's catchy theme! A definite recommendation from my side - if you want to try out LXDE, try PCLinuxOS LXDE spin. It is awesome!

You can download both 32-bit and 64-bit versions from here.