Xfce Forum

perik

Member

Registered: 2014-06-11

Posts: 3

probably simpel question about installing xubuntu

Hi!

Im using Ubuntu 14.04 (or xubuntu I guess? how do I know? )

After upgrading the system became really slow and the background on my desktop dissapeared. Im using the preinstalled system on odroid u3 (http://hardkernel.com/main/products/prdt_info.php).

I want to reinstall everything but how do I format the eMMC (and install a clean system? which shall I use?

another stupid question:
what is the relationship between:
ubuntu, xubuntu, debian, xfc ...

I guess xubuntu is ubuntu but with xfc (the kind of desktoptop solution for ubuntu?)

thanks!

P

landstander

Member

Registered: 2014-12-14

Posts: 5

Re: probably simpel question about installing xubuntu

Debian was the original distribution as is shown here:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ … meline.svg

As you can see Debian has been forked and repackaged as new distributions a bazillion times. You can also see by the same graph that Debian wasn't the only distribution to be forked and repackaged, if you scroll down you can also see SLS/Slackware, as well as Redhat Linux. Where each will differ slightly in the type of commands issued in a terminal and the names of packages that are installed.

Ubuntu (and Xubuntu) are based on a Debian core (because they were forked from that original project) and have been repackaged with a specific Desktop (the graphical user interface (GUI)) hence the unique name given to each distribution.

If I remember correctly, Ubuntu was originally released with the Gnome desktop as its default but has recently been updated in the past few years and now uses the Unity desktop as its default. Maybe they should call the Gnome version "Gubuntu" instead?
Xubuntu uses the XFCE desktop by default (Where XFCE is a desktop interface and not an operating system (OS) by itself).
Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop by default.

The odroid U3 may not have intended the system to be updated, and the new software that was installed by the recent update may have pulled in more system resource hungry version of what was originally installed.

You could try installing very light on resources OS's such as Ratpoison (a text mode OS without a GUI), or maybe Puppylinux, Crunchbang, or Archbang (all GUI desktops, but all of these take some configuring) or something light like one of these. Maybe Raspbian or some Droid variant of that?

Check this out: Distrowatch
and use something like the following for the search:
OS Type: Linux
Distribution Category: Old Computers (you could also try: "Raspberry Pi")
Country of Origin: Any country but should probably stick to countries for whom you know how to read and write the language for.
Based on: Here you could try the main ones mentioned above "Debian" or "Slackware" or "Redhat" but you could also try "Arch" and "Puppy"
Not based on: None
Desktop Interface: No desktop, Awesome, Blackbox, Enlightenment, Fluxbox, LXDE, Openbox, Ratpoison, XFCE, (you could probably check some others too (scroll down on that page to select multiple options).
Architecture: Arm
Status: Active

This should give you a starting point for testing other distributions that might work with that setup.