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Having gotten sick of Windows 7 Starter Edition for being so ridiculously slow on my Netbook, not long after I bought it I installed Lubuntu so that I could actually get things done without having to wait an age for stuff to load (and that was after an upgrade to 2GB of RAM).

So, since then I have kept Windows 7 on my netbook for the sake of being able to do stuff I only knew how to in Windows, and because I was not entirely used to/comfortable with linux yet. Now, however, I have decided to make Lubuntu my permanent OS on this machine, my only gripe being that the default Desktop Environment isn't exactly the most pleasant to look at...

I understand that this is partly because of the fact that it is so lightweight, and my Netbook might struggle with some of the effects in full desktop OSes... However, there must be some still relatively lightweight alternatives which look nicer.

I'm jealous of how beautiful an interface Ubuntu's Unity is, but I wouldn't dare try and run it on this little thing.

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    What exactly is your question? The closest I could see is this: "However, there must be some still relatively lightweight alternatives which look nicer." So would your question be something like Is there a distro prettier than Lubuntu but as light on resources?
    – user25656
    Mar 30, 2013 at 17:28
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    I think on 2GB RAM unity would be supported if your graphics supports 3d acceleration. Then there is 2d version of unity as well. As far as lightweight DE goes give a try to e17 [known as enlightenment] or xfce. askubuntu.com/questions/65083/… Mar 30, 2013 at 17:28
  • Sorry for the vague question. I guess the accepted answer got what I meant best. I mean to use this netbook as a permanent work machine for my personal projects, since my Main PC is hooked up to a TV and not suited for it. I just wanted something that was more of a pleasure to use than Lubuntu for everyday work.
    – Luke
    Apr 1, 2013 at 16:13

2 Answers 2

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You seem to be asking how to install a more fully featured user interface on Lubuntu.

Lubuntu is Ubuntu with the LXDE desktop environment instead of GNOME/Unity. In some ways we talk about it as a separate, derivative distribution, but really, it's just Ubuntu with different packages installed.

You may want to try the Xfce desktop environment, which is lighter-weight than GNOME (whether GNOME with Unity or GNOME with GNOME Shell). Xfce uses more resources than LXDE, but you may find it runs well on your machine. I recommend trying it. Unless you're very low on disk space, installing it shouldn't cause any problems, and you can always decide not to use it if you don't like it.

The best way to install Xfce on Ubuntu (or Lubuntu, or any other derivative) is usually to install the xubuntu-desktop Install xubuntu-desktop package.

You can do that in the Lubuntu Software Center (which you may or may not have, depending on what version of Lubuntu you installed), or the Synaptic package manager (which you should have if you don't have a Software Center). Or run this command in an LXTerminal (Ctrl+Alt+T):

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Then log out, and on the login screen, you can select Xubuntu as your session type.

For information on using Xfce in Ubuntu, see the Xubuntu website.

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  • Oh, I see. So basically, once I have one 'flavour' of Ubuntu, I have them all? I just have to do a sudo apt-get install, I guess? Cool. I'll try XFCE out. Thanks.
    – Luke
    Apr 1, 2013 at 16:09
  • I can't seem to login to either a xubuntu-session or an xfce-session. I am just sent back to the login screen after a brief delay.
    – Luke
    Apr 1, 2013 at 16:41
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    @Luke I'm sorry to hear that. It's a separate problem though, so you should post a separate question about it. When you do, it will help if you specify what version of Ubuntu you are running, what if anything you are able to see during the delay, and whether or not the problem occurs if you attempt to log in as Guest or a different user. Feel free to comment here with a link to the new question, of course. Apr 1, 2013 at 18:39
  • I have asked the question here: askubuntu.com/questions/277275/…
    – Luke
    Apr 2, 2013 at 21:37
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Try cinammon 2d out it looks the same as the 3d one. Either that or xfce. At 2gb your only going to get office apps & internet if you want glamour. Or maybe gnome 2d.

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  • Well, internet and text editing is the main thing I hope to be doing, so I may give that a look. Thanks!
    – Luke
    Apr 1, 2013 at 16:14

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