Ubuntu Linux-based Distro Lubuntu To No Longer Focus on Old Hardware (betanews.com)

Lubuntu, a popular Ubuntu flavor, has gained traction over the years for supporting older hardware. As Brian Fagioli writes at BetaNews, one of the focuses of the Lubuntu developers is to support aging computers. However, that is about to change. He adds: When Lubunu 18.10 is released in October 2018, it will ditch LXDE for the newer LXQt. Despite it also being a desktop environment that is easy on resources, the Lubuntu developers are planning to drop their focus on old hardware after the transition. "[...] Our main focus is shifting from providing a distribution for old hardware to a functional yet modular distribution focused on getting out of the way and letting users use their computer. In essence, this is leveraging something we have always done with Lubuntu; providing an operating system which users can use to revive their old computers, but bringing this to the age of modern computing," says Simon Quigley of Lubuntu team.

Comments

Sending users back to Windows XP.

[xack]

Windows XP despite not being officially supported is still used widely in China and in enterprise with specialist software and hardware. Without giving people a Linux route for old hardware you send people back to proprietary software. I hope your happy "freedom advocates". Remember XP requires just a Pentium and 64MB RAM.

Re:Sending users back to Windows XP.

[slack_justyb]

hope your happy "freedom advocates". Remember XP requires just a Pentium and 64MB RAM.

Slackware only needs a 486 and 64MB. With 128MB and WindowMaker, the system purrs for the most part. Of course, that's not my daily driver.

Re:Sending users back to Windows XP.

[omnichad]

If you can still use outdated, insecure Windows you can still use outdated, insecure Lubuntu. I see no difference here. Neither will run recent versions of Chrome/Chromium or Firefox. Neither get security updates.

low resources hw vs old hardware

[4wdloop]

Supporting old hardware has little to do with low-resource focused distribution (albeit it helps to be low resource on old hardware).

Would it simply be just another desktop install option in Ubuntu then?

For low-resource x86 hw there are other options, I personally like TinyCore. How about for arm hw (RPI etc.)?

Why not completely drop it then?

[SurenEnfiajyan]

So why not completely drop it then replacing with Mate or XFCE? What advantages does LXDE have over XFCE or Mate?

fail title

[luther349]

lxqt is just as light as lxde if not lighter. there switching to qt because gtk is become bloted.

Re:Errr

[luther349]

the title of this post is bs. i tested lxqt on manjaro its just as snappy as lxde. its just as fast as lxde. what going to happen is the removal of of 32bit.

Re:Errr

[luther349]

the entire post is just some editor talking shit. lxqt is just as light as lxde.

NetBSD

[manu0601]

There are many other OS to use on ancient hardware. Some cited Slackware, there is also NetBSD.

Try FluXuan (Devuan) or Void

[Artemis3]

FluXuan Is very light on resources. Boot to desktop and its using 68M only.
Based on Devuan Ascii, you'll be at home if you are used to how Debian used to be, without the bloat.

Of course you could also just use Devuan with your favorite wm.

If you don't mind being on the leading edge, there is also Void, which not being based on any other distro, doesn't have to share a sudden termination of 32 bit support.

There are still many alternatives suitable for old hardware, perhaps take a look at Distrowatch.

Re:Try FluXuan (Devuan) or Void

[johannesg]

Boot to desktop and its using 68M only.

It's at times like this when I remember my Amiga 500 booting to desktop, and being just as functional as your Linux desktop, in 512KB. That's "kilobyte", and there was plenty space left over to run applications.

Ok, technically that's cheating: the Amiga had much of its operating system, including the desktop, in a 256KB ROM. So we should be counting that as well, then...

Now get off my lawn.

Re:LXDE available on Debian

[Tough Love]

One additional comment: I ran Civ V from the LXDE desktop, where it had thoughtfully placed the icon all by itself. Civ didn't start, but eventually when I logged out of LXDE, Civ immediately started on the KDE desktop. Other apps didn't have any problem figuring out where and when they should start, so this is a Steam bug. The concept of parallel desktop sessions is a foreign concept to the mind of a game developer? Or more respectfully: nobody thought to try this so nobody noticed that whatever hack they did in to make the launcher work isn't quite right.

P3-733Mhz

[Crass Spektakel]

If support for old systems is dropped I will drop LXDE.

My smallest LXDE system is a PentiumMMX 233Mhz, 192MB RAM and S3 Virge. I use it mostly for its rather rare Audio-Hardware which requires at least two fully ISA compliant Slots which later systems simply do not offer. While is overall quite sluggish it gets the job done with very little suffering.

Another one is a Pentium III 733Mhz with 384MB of Memory and a Geforce 256. This one works pretty well with LXDE. While Applications take some extra seconds to start they work very well.

I really like the lean approach of LXDE.

If support for old systems is dropped I will drop LXDE.

I realized most distributions that say "32bit"...

[rainer_d]

still need PAE.

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook from c.a. 2003 and the realization meant that there are a few systems left with true 32bit support.

OpenBSD worked surprisingly well. Though any modern app is going to be slow on such a thing. The biggest problem is the 1024MB of RAM it has.