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I have an old computer that is placed in a real nice place in my home so I can work alone, I use it to see films, series and work with my photos.

I've put it out all my hardware details (2GB DDR2 RAM, 146GB disk space on /dev/sda1) for you to check it.

I am currently using Ubuntu 18.04. but I've been told that I should be using Lubuntu.

I am not expert so, seeing my hardware outputs, what do you think? Should I remove Ubuntu 18.04 and install Lubuntu 18.10?

lspci output 

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82946GZ/PL/GL Memory Controller Hub (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation 82946GZ/GL Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
06:04.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (rev 10)
06:05.0 Multimedia video controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Video Capture (rev 11)
06:05.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)

lspci -nnk | grep VGA -A1
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 82946GZ/GL Integrated Graphics Controller [8086:2972] (rev 02)
    Subsystem: Fujitsu Technology Solutions 82946GZ/GL Integrated Graphics Controller [1734:10b5]

 lspci -v | grep -A7 -i "audio"
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Fujitsu Technology Solutions NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 24
    Memory at d0300000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
    Kernel modules: snd_hda_intel

00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
--
06:05.1 Multimedia controller: Brooktree Corporation Bt878 Audio Capture (rev 11)
    Subsystem: Pinnacle Systems Inc. PCTV pro (TV + FM stereo receiver, audio section)
    Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 33, IRQ 22
    Memory at d0001000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
    Capabilities: <access denied>
    Kernel driver in use: snd_bt87x
    Kernel modules: snd_bt87x

lspci -nnk | grep net -A2
06:04.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter [10ec:8139] (rev 10)
    Subsystem: Fujitsu Technology Solutions RTL-8100/8101L/8139 PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter [1734:10b1]
    Kernel driver in use: 8139too
    Kernel modules: 8139cp, 8139too

Here is my memory capacities. 

~$ sudo lshw -class memory
  *-firmware:0              
       description: BIOS
       vendor: FUJITSU SIEMENS // Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
       physical id: 0
       version: 6.00 R1.03.2660.A1
       date: 10/05/2007
       size: 105KiB
       capacity: 448KiB
       capabilities: pci pnp upgrade shadowing escd cdboot bootselect int13floppynec int13floppytoshiba int13floppy360 int13floppy1200 int13floppy720 int13floppy2880 int5printscreen int9keyboard int14serial int17printer int10video acpi usb ls120boot zipboot biosbootspecification
  *-firmware:1
       description: BIOS
       physical id: 513
       size: 1022KiB
       capabilities: edd int13floppytoshiba
  *-firmware:2
       description: BIOS
       physical id: 2800
       date: Cache
       size: 1007KiB
       capacity: 4864KiB
       capabilities: isa mca vesa bootselect socketedrom int13floppy360 int13floppy720 int17printer int10video biosbootspecification netboot
  *-cache
       description: L3 cache
       physical id: 7
       slot: L3 Cache
       size: 2MiB
       capacity: 16MiB
       capabilities: burst internal write-back unified
       configuration: level=3
  *-memory
       description: System Memory
       physical id: 24
       slot: System board or motherboard
       size: 2GiB
     *-bank:0
          description: DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 667 MHz (1,5 ns)
          physical id: 0
          slot: Slot-1
          size: 1GiB
          width: 40968 bits
          clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)
     *-bank:1
          description: DIMM DDR2 Synchronous 667 MHz (1,5 ns)
          physical id: 1
          slot: Slot-2
          size: 1GiB
          width: 41992 bits
          clock: 667MHz (1.5ns)

And just in case someone needed it... hard drive:

sudo df -h
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
udev            963M     0  963M   0% /dev
tmpfs           199M  1,8M  197M   1% /run
/dev/sda1       146G   12G  127G   9% /
tmpfs           993M   56M  937M   6% /dev/shm
tmpfs           5,0M  4,0K  5,0M   1% /run/lock
tmpfs           993M     0  993M   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop1       88M   88M     0 100% /snap/core/5328
/dev/loop0      141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/74
/dev/loop6       15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/45
/dev/loop9       35M   35M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/319
/dev/loop2      2,3M  2,3M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/238
/dev/loop3      2,4M  2,4M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/199
/dev/loop4       43M   43M     0 100% /snap/gtk-common-themes/701
/dev/loop5       88M   88M     0 100% /snap/core/5662
/dev/loop7       13M   13M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/124
/dev/loop8       13M   13M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/103
/dev/loop10      13M   13M     0 100% /snap/gnome-characters/117
/dev/loop11     141M  141M     0 100% /snap/gnome-3-26-1604/70
/dev/loop13     3,8M  3,8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/57
/dev/loop12     2,3M  2,3M     0 100% /snap/gnome-calculator/222
/dev/loop16      88M   88M     0 100% /snap/core/5548
/dev/loop18     200M  200M     0 100% /snap/brave/34
/dev/loop14     3,8M  3,8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/54
/dev/loop15      15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/43
/dev/loop17     3,8M  3,8M     0 100% /snap/gnome-system-monitor/51
/dev/loop19     200M  200M     0 100% /snap/brave/33
/dev/loop20      15M   15M     0 100% /snap/gnome-logs/40
tmpfs           199M   16K  199M   1% /run/user/121
tmpfs           199M   28K  199M   1% /run/user/1000
Improve this question
11
  • 5
    Is your computer working OK for you with Ubuntu?
    – Organic Marble
    Oct 21, 2018 at 1:16
  • 1
    First try Lubuntu 18.10 on a new partition or via Live USB or another machine and find out if you like it! Otherwise, install Lubuntu 18.04 LTS which will be supported until April 2021.
    – DK Bose
    Oct 21, 2018 at 1:18
  • 1
    And a more useful way to show your machine's specs is to install inxi and post the output of inxi -Fxxxz here.
    – DK Bose
    Oct 21, 2018 at 1:22
  • 1
    Even though it is not an LTS release, Lubuntu 18.10 is a big step up from Lubuntu 18.04 because of its default LXQt desktop environment.
    – karel
    Oct 21, 2018 at 1:58
  • 1
    This seems like it's dependent on your own subjective opinion (and the opinion of whoever told you to run Lubuntu) so should probably be closed as "primarily opinion-based". (And maybe I missed it, but didn't notice your RAM or CPU). PS you can install Lubuntu packages to your Ubuntu install, and try it out.
    – Xen2050
    Oct 21, 2018 at 4:56

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
7

At one time Lubuntu had lower minimum hardware requirements than Xubuntu, but this is no longer the case. Today, there is only one good reason to choose Lubuntu over Xubuntu, and that is because Lubuntu is more frugal than Xubuntu about RAM usage as shown by the below chart.

RAM Usage for Ubuntu flavours
RAM Usage of different flavors of 18.04 under baseline conditions  (Click image to enlarge)

As you can see in the chart, Lubuntu 18.04 uses a full 1GB of RAM less than Ubuntu 18.04 under baseline conditions with no other applications running. This is a big reduction in RAM usage for an old computer from the Windows XP era that has only 2GB RAM.

To get a smooth experience in Xubuntu when running multiple applications in parallel on the desktop, it is recommended to have at least 1GB of memory.

The advantage of Lubuntu 18.04 is that it is a Long Term Support (supported until April, 2021) release. The advantage of Lubuntu 18.10 is that its LXQt desktop is nicer than LXDE in 18.04.

Improve this answer
6
  • 1
    Does the chart show average RAM used at startup, or other conditions? (Also, I think 32-bit still seems to use less ram than 64-bit)
    – Xen2050
    Oct 21, 2018 at 4:25
  • 2
    @Xen2050 The data in the chart was collected after booting each of these Ubuntu flavors and no other program was installed or run before this data was collected. The RAM usage would be higher if Firefox, VLC and GIMP were all open at the same time.
    – karel
    Oct 21, 2018 at 4:50
  • 1
    Here, an edit and an upvote and thanks again for the other heads-up! :-)
    – Fabby
    Oct 21, 2018 at 15:31
  • @karel Thanks I think that my case is somehow clear, my computer works fine with Ubuntu 18.04 and only freeze when my ram is full and swapping partition star working, may be this can be solved, of course... But it is a fact that if I use Lubuntu I will be using less ram so may it works even better. Now I must decide if I install Lubuntu 18.04 or Lubuntu 18.1 of course I am assuming I can install gimp and other applications If I found troubles just get back to Ubuntu 18.04... Thanks
    – ft18
    Oct 22, 2018 at 2:41
  • 1
    The advantage of Lubuntu 18.04 is that it is a Long Term Support (until April, 2021) release. The advantage of Lubuntu 18.10 is that its LXQt desktop is nicer than LXDE in 18.04.
    – karel
    Oct 22, 2018 at 3:05

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