Xubuntu Linux 10.04
Sound and Multimedia
YouTube & Flash
You’ll need to grab the flash plugin from the Ubuntu Software Center to view Youtube Videos. After I installed it, I had no problem with sound or video in YouTube.
DVDs
My test DVD “Enter the Dragon” didn’t play. Not really a surprise since Xubuntu makes no claim to have included the codec necessary for DVDs to play in Linux.
Problems & Headaches
One very minor problem I noticed was that the desktop wallpaper did not revert to the default xubuntu-karmic.png file when I switched my session back from Xfce to Xubuntu. Not a big deal at all, I just right clicked and pulled up the correct wallpaper.
Another problem that’s a big more significant with Xubuntu is the lack of Ubuntu One. For some strange reason, it is not included the way it is with Ubuntu Linux. Given that the Ubuntu Software Center is part of Xubuntu, it would make sense for Ubuntu One (the online service and the music store) to be incorporated into Xubuntu at some point.
Another perplexing omission from Xubuntu is the social media client, Gwibber. It was in Ubuntu but it’s not present in Xubuntu. You can install it via the Software Center though. But I’d like to see it added to the Networking application menu. It makes perfect sense to have it available immediately after installing Xubuntu.
You'll need to install flash via the Ubuntu Software Center before playing YouTube videos.
(14 votes, average: 4.21 out of 5)
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Multimedia has to be enabled on most flavours of Ubuntu.
Doing:
sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras flashplugin-installer
sudo /usr/share/doc/libdvdread4/install-css.sh
Should get most multimedia working.
Most of the laptops I work with need b43-fwcutter run as well, to get the wireless working.
“One of the things I disliked most about Kubuntu was that it lacked the Ubuntu Software Center”
It is in the repository. Install it yourself; it it not that diffcult:
aptitude search –
aptitude -y install –
Although Xubuntu does not include gwibber, there is ‘Pidgin Internet Messenger’ included. UbuntuOne is not included by default because it is not fully compatible. It is written expressly for Gnome at this time, and will be expanded in the Maverick Meerkat cycle. To make it fully functional, you must install the gnome interface for it, as well as Nautilus file manager to replace Thunar.
Thanks for a very thorough review.
I’ve been using xubuntu for years as a way to reduce package bloat from Linux. It has been a happy experience, mostly.
Oddly, I just installed 10.04 on my main desktop yesterday and chose LXDE instead. It feels much lighter than XFCE did. There’s no menus across the top or bottom, which always bothered me about Ubuntu. Happily, my mouse buttons matter when used on the desktop again. I can see where Mom wouldn’t like that – she needs to see a menu/panel to know what to “click.”
This is my preferred flavour of Ubuntu, because it is fast and KDE applications work better on Xubuntu than on GNOME Ubuntu. Ubuntu Tweak works on Xubuntu and I highly recommend it for cleaning up redundant packages and customising the system.
One minor point is that the menu editor could be made more user-friendly.
Gwibber also isn’t included because it was written expressly for GNOME, lately the Xubuntu team has been trying to be as independent from GNOME related software as possible.
Jim, I have long been a fan of Xubuntu, since I tend to favor KDE and XFCE over other desktop environments. Recently, however, I have been following KDE more closely in order to track changes, since XFCE has been relatively dormant recently. No doubt about it, when I need a faster desktop experience, I choose XFCE. As far as XFCE versus LXDE that someone commented about, some XFCE implementations are loaded up and approach the bloat of full desktop systems, but a light XFCE implementation will definitely rival LXDE and it will be more robust and more stable. If you REALLY need something much lighter than XFCE, you are better going to a window manager like IceWM, which is flexible and configurable. Besides, you can superimpose the xfdesktop from XFCE onto IceWM and get a really nice implementation.
As far as graphics, the default graphics with XFCE are quite plain, but there is nearly as rich a collection of XFCE wallpapers, mouse pointers, backdrops, and themes as what you find with KDE and GNOME. I’ve found some pretty outstanding Xubuntu art in the past and in fact, in previous releases I have found the Xubuntu art to be superior to the Ubuntu or Kubuntu art – of course, that is merely personal opinion.
Operationally, Xubuntu is also, at least to me, the most interesting desktop. Coming from a UNIX background where I used the UNIX Common Desktop Environment (CDE), where you aware that XFCE was actually the first port of a desktop environment that made it to Linux? It was originally a FREE play on CDE and looked the same – UGLY! Fortunately, artists in the free community quickly improved it. XFCE has always been faster and lighter than the primary desktops but it lacks that heavy weight interprocess communication overhead, and that’s why it doesn’t chew up nearly as many memory resources.
All in all, XFCE rocks as a desktop and Xubuntu is undoubtedly the most popular distribution to feature it (though there are quite a few others as well if you check out DistroWatch – Mandriva actually offers XFCE as a desktop alternative and was the first distro I know of to do so std.
I am here with the aforementioned Xubuntu 10.04 running in Virtualbox OSE from sidux. Looks good, gets here pretty simply, and it’s pretty much how Jim called it! :-)
Dragonmouth says:
@charlie-tca:
Did we read the same review? All Jim did was review the desktop environment and whether it has eye candy or not. Very little was said about the distro itself. How does it handle networking and wi-fi? Were the full capabilities of monitor/video card properly recognized? Or were some totally unacceptable default settings used and how easy/hard is it to correct them? How easy is it to access the administrative functions? Or does this “newbie-friendly” distro require the noobs to be CLI experts as all other Ubuntu flavors do?
Brian replies:
Wifi is handled by the tool network manager, and an icon is included in the XFCE task bar to achieve wireless access. Getting actual access will depend on whether the firmware for your interface is included or not. If you are wired initially Xubuntu will offer to download any “non free” wireless firmware – more than likely that will be necessary for a significant population. Xubuntu does make this fairly easy to accomplish. There are not a lot of administrative functions at your fingertips. Package management is handled by the Ubuntu package manager or alternatively synaptic. Beyond that, if you need to tweak you need to know what you are doing. Video is automatically detected; you are in tweak mode if you have to mess with it.
Note that Ubuntu tries to set itself up so that the typical use case is that no extra configuration is required. It is not strong in graphical system administration tools. If that is something you are looking for, that would be a significant weakness of this or any other Ubuntu system. Linux Mint, also based on Ubuntu, does a much better job including additional administrative tools, and would be a better choice if you need that kind of functionality. If you need that functionality coupled with a relatively light desktop, Mint does offer multiple choices in that category, so it is a viable alternative to Xubuntu. Personally I like SimplyMEPIS and antiX, the first for simplicity with a modest number of powerful administrative tools coupled with excellent documentation, and I like antiX for the light environment at a cost of modest complexity, with a great number of tools. antiX does take a bit more expertise, but its well documented with a great community. It is a bit more of a tweaker’s system, though, no mistaking that. On the opposite end, still easy to install, but definitely a tweaker’s kind of system, my sidux systems are marvels of flexibility, but nothing a person needing only GUI tools would ever consider even touching.