If you talked to anyone offering Linux as an alternative to Windows a few years ago, they would tell you that Linux did not need as much resources than Windows did.

Yep, most Linux Distros where lighter than even Windows XP, and you could have yourself an operating system that was modern and extremely capable while still using your laptop from 2001.

Fast forward to today and you are looking at a very different picture. Where are the lightweight distros?

Power Corrupts

Today, if you want a full featured and capable desktop OS you will be looking at some of the more popular tuxes out there like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Linux Mint, Mandriva or Suse as a few for-instances.

They all perform very well on average modern hardware. Better than Vista or Windows 7 for sure.

The problem is that most high end distros have moved beyond the “old hardware” stage of their usefulness. Try running Ubuntu Lucid on something with a Celeron Processor and 512mb RAM. Sure it works, but you will find yourself running into performance issues soon enough.

This is very obvious in our household where we have hardware that covers a wide range of specs, from an AMD Sempron 3000 with 1GB of RAM that runs Ubuntu Lucid and my laptop that is a Dual Core Intel 2.17GHZ machine with 4GB RAM on the one hand, down to my wife’s laptop that is an Intel Pentium M with 768MB RAM (an odd number, I discovered a 256mb ram chip somewhere and chucked it in there) and my mothers computer that is a Celeron 800 with 512MB RAM.

Ubuntu just isn’t feasible on the lower end machines any more.

Enter Our Roundup

We need something lightweight that can run on the lower end machines. Sadly the really lightweight end of the spectrum has been neglected in the desktop Linux world.

Yes you have XUbuntu, Puppy or Damn Small Linux – but would any of them fill our needs?

I have reviewed Puppy before, and my wife (Elzje) has used Xubuntu on her laptop before, so we have an idea of what is on offer out there.

Will either of them really meet our needs though? While I am still searching for the perfect KDE4 distro, I will rely heavily on Elzje to provide insight into her experience using each of the distro’s in question. I will test each of them for a review if they have not passed through my reviews list before, and I will look at them from the viewpoint of someone using them for work purposes.

Between the two of us we have come up with the following seven questions that need to be answered:

1. Is it reasonably quick on her laptop?
2. Can you use the Internet with ease (Youtube, Facebook, etc)?
3. Can you edit documents and spreadsheets?
4. How easy is e-mail use?
5. Are Codecs available for common formats (mp3, mpeg, avi etc)?
6. How hard is it to join networks?
7. Is it a swap in for a higher end distro?

Those are seven simple questions, in the reviews we will also put the distro through our regular 23point test – with the caveat that while we are looking at the lightweight distros as possible replacements for higher end distros we will not be running a direct comparisson with higher end distros. Complicated, I know, but we will flesh it out as we go along.

Here is how we will split the daily roundups:

Quintin

I will be playing the role of “Family guy/friend who ‘knows computers.’” I will focus on doing the reviews of the distros not already reviewed, and as such will look at hardware support, installation and setting up for the new user.

My eye will look at the aspects of the distro most salted Linux users will look at, and I will hopefully bring you an answer for the question “What to give my grandma/friend/uncle with an ancient computer that will cause me the least hassles.”

Elzje

Elzje will be using every distro and giving her opinion on things like ease of use, finding her way around and will be asking and answering some questions that might seem obvious to more hardened professionals but might pose some real problems to people new to Linux.

One thing that we realized while preparing for this series is that she lives in her browser for many of her day to day tasks like helping out with the Daily Snippets on the blog, so browser choice and support for her commonly browsed pages are going to be very important to her.

Guinea Pigs

Our Roundup consists of the latest versions of the following distros: (If a new release is imminent we went with the testing release to avoid penalizing a distro for an issue that might have been addressed for the new release.)

• Lubuntu – Our first one in this series, and the inspiration for it. The pretender to the Xubuntu Throne. Elzje has been using this for the past week.
• Xubuntu – The go to lightweight Distro. It’s implementation of XFCE is very nice.
• Linux Mint 9 LXDE – The lightweight version of Linux Mint 9, we decided against the XFCE version of Mint and went with this one instead.
• Puppy Linux – The Iconic PUP! It is not aimed at the beginner, so might fail in the “Give it to gramma” department…
• Dreamlinux – There are a few distros we have not tried before, Dreamlinux is one of them. Will it deliver?
• Sabayon LXDE – Another newcomer, it will feature in our search for the perfect KDE series as well.
• Slitaz Linuz – Our REALLY lightweight distro for this series. It snuck in ahead of Damn Smal Linux. Also new to us.

Summary

Day one will follow soon, featuring Lubuntu, and then a Lubuntu review as well. Do you think we should include another distro? An area you want a lightweight distro to perform before you consider it? Let us know in the comments!

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