[Opinion] Netbooks and desktops in Fedora

After on this page I have always found a lot of information that has saved my life. Today I decided to make a very small contribution, here is my experience, I hope it helps you.

A few days ago I decided to remove Windows XP from my favorite computer, a Toshiba NB200 (32 bit), I chose Fedora 17 to return to Linux. I chose the version: Fedora 17 «Miracle Beefy» 32 Bit with KDE 4.7. I also tried it with: GNOME, LXDE y XFCE.

My impressions:

KDE 4.7:

First of all I would like to mention that at least I do not like the KWallet application, giving all my passwords to the same program does not make me the best option.
This interface on more powerful computers is beautiful, BUT on a NETBOOK it leaves a lot to be desired, even disabling desktop indexing, processing issues and effects; also the configuration that comes special for netbooks is equally heavy than the normal configuration, since in my experience only the appearance changes but not the processing. After 3 days –And many times of suffering a maximum slowness– the computer just didn't start, it just stayed on the logo Fedora.

GNOME:

Although this desktop doesn't handle as much animation as KDE, I am also slow, especially when opening the application drawer, since the new presentation consumes too many resources, at least when it comes to processors ATOM We speak. Having 3 applications running was too much for this desktop. His slowness was less than KDE, but still very exasperating.

LXDE:

It does not have the battery indicator, but by clicking on the accesses near the clock, it can be added, although the appearance is very simple, becoming ugly. XFCE if it has this indicator.

XFCE and LXDE:

They do not have the monitor brightness manager, BUT I installed a program called JUPITER and with it I was able to manipulate this. The options of both desks are reduced, in the case of LXDE Most of its graphics are very VERY austere, which is excellent for a computer with low performance, as an example, just look at its battery indicator, which is just a Black rectangle that is filled with a color - chosen by the user. - to indicate the energy level, also this indicator is not visible by default, there is no more problem than adding it.

In the special case of XFCE, This desk surprised me, since it has a quite pleasant appearance to the eye, in addition to that it shows how all the details were taken care of, from the color it handles, and the way of presenting its applications, and the only moment of slowness that I perceived, it was when starting a program a little heavier, like Chrome, Firefox o zsnes.

LXDE y XFCE they are good, however XFCE takes the palms, since I not only take care of the speed of the desktop, but its appearance.

After staying with LXDE y XFCE to continue testing them, Fedora It works wonderfully, you just have to deactivate the application that I never really found its use, the so-called SELinux, which surprisingly cannot be uninstalled (or at least I never found a way), just disable.

En conclusion The topic of Netbooks is very broad, since they are computers that can accompany you everywhere without taking up a lot of space, and what better way to bring your favorite distro in it. To improve this experience there are LXDE y XFCE, which cover all the needs without problems of slowness and in the case of XFCE with an excellent appearance.


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  1.   Martin said

    @Manuel: it is true that LXDE is ugly -like GNOM3 vanilla- but it seems that it is quite configurable, look at Lubuntu, it doesn't look like LXDE. Fedora has that theme with desktops, for better or worse it depends on the taste: they don't care about customizing anything, they just pack it, check that it works and release it.

    As for SELinux and how he replied to @Juan Carlos: SELinux is forced down your throat like a fattening chicken or turkey because it is the security system chosen in Red Hat and as we know Fedora is Red's test-ground Hat, hence it is impossible to uninstall it, just disable it.

    Ahhhh, there is nothing like the simplicity of distros like Arch, Gentoo or Debian where you install a minimal kernel and build your system with the least amount of dependencies possible, it's refreshing! - in contrast to every time that for work reasons I "face" CentOS systems (in a word stable Fedora), Ubuntu, Red Hat or openSUSE =)

    1.    Juan Carlos said

      It's clear that you don't like "RedHat distros", and I remind you that Gentoo also comes with SELinux. Be happy but not evangelizing, please, against other distributions.

      regards

      1.    Martin said

        "Evangelize" is a horrible word that comes from the Catholic Church, the cradle of pedophiles and bloody conquerors, but who better than the genius of Louis CK to talk about the subject: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VABSoHYQr6k

        Juanca, I'm not "evangelizing against" RedRat distros, not even there, I'm just saying that CentOS is horrible, the worst thing I've ever used in my professional life.
        Now that CentOS is incidentally a cloned RedHat and a stable Fedora is impossible to avoid :)

        1.    Juan Carlos said

          Jaaaajajajaaa ………

  2.   Juan Carlos said

    SELinux is one of the best (if not the best, it depends on your use) security systems out there for Linux. It is integrated into the Kernel, so you will not be able to uninstall it as if it were just another application. It is very useful depending on how you use your equipment. Ask Dn. Google for "SELinux manual", you will find several, I recommend the manual made by Red Hat (since you are with Fedora), the most complete I saw.

    Greetings.

    1.    Martin said

      I do not agree: SELinux is good, yes -developed by the NSA- but the reality is that they put it prepo in Fedora because they needed it in Red Hat.
      Of course SELinux is good, but for an average user it is, besides unusable, totally superfluous. I say that it is unusable because dealing with SELinux is torture, it is basically martyrdom and getting to leave a usable system with SELinux is almost impossible, only applicable to servers that are not going to undergo major changes, only security updates for a long time.
      Sure, you will tell me "but Fedora incorporates it successfully" for what I answer: a lie! It is a huge farce, until version 16 Fedora users fought with SELinux since it was impossible to use the machine in a normal way, even Torvalds published in his G + profile an article about it where he criticized the distro -what he uses as a good Red Hat employee- since his daughter couldn't connect a printer and print without a window popping up asking her for her admin pwd, lol.
      Fedora made SELinux "usable" by waiting until it became useless in relation to the overhead with which it loads the system, since in addition to being complicated and impractical, it is very heavy.

      To implement solutions of this type I lean more towards AppArmor that without being a war tank like SELinux is quite useful -in fact it is the protection that Ubuntu has always used- or even better: Tomoyo 2, modern, flexible, useful and light on the system - and also incorporated into the kernel since version 2.6.24 if I'm not mistaken.

      Likewise: you know well that both SELinux and AppArmor and Tomoyo are not necessary in GNU / Linux home / SOHO environments and that the work of keeping the rules up to date to prevent the system from breaking justifies very little some other dark bug of Firefox, Java or Flash which, in addition to being generally solved in a very short time, is impossible to affect a GNU / Linux installation by a qualified user or users of canned distros.

      1.    Silmido said

        The printer "problem" was with openSuse and not with Fedora. I am sick of printing in Fedora and it has never asked me for the administrator password.

      2.    Juan Carlos said

        I don't think it's unusable, difficult at first when you don't know it well, but not unusable. The issue with SELinux is that you have to configure it well so that it "does not bother", and it does so much to maintain a really almost impregnable system (I say almost because in terms of security, nothing is totally secure) that you can even restrict the powers to root ( I don't know if I can handle the others you mention, I don't know them well).

        I never disable it on my personal computers, and I never had problems, except with GoogleChrome for the famous sandbox, although nothing that I cannot solve with a command in the terminal.

        Likewise, that is why I clarify "it depends on its use", since it is more logical to have it activated on the server than on the home, but each one ...

        1.    Martin said

          "The issue with SELinux is that you have to configure it well so that it" does not bother ", and it does so much to maintain a really almost impregnable system (I say almost because in terms of security nothing is totally secure)"
          Agreed.

          "That you can even restrict the powers to root (I don't know if you can with the others you mention, I don't know them well)."
          I think not, and I don't know if I like this path Juan Carlos, root is root, he has to have full freedom because he is the only one with full access to the computer to solve any problem but if he is caged and the error is recursive, we sound 😛
          Although, as you say, to make a server almost unassailable, it is necessary to restrict the access that root may have to the system in the event of an exploit - which has already occurred and which, it is true, with a restricted root the guy on the other side would have said: WTF? ;-D

          Regards!

      3.    proper said

        I also have SELinux activated and when it blocks something it shows a little sign saying: such an application has been blocked, if you want to allow its execution forever, execute this command in the console ». The message is not literal but it is what it is trying to say. You run it and that's it, the problem is over.

  3.   ariki said

    @Manuel_Sar: you know I have a fedora running on a hp-100 netbook with a gnome shell desktop, and the truth is that it works well including applications such as chrome, now I think the real problem with your netbook is that it is a bit limited in resources, it can go for that Kde side did not work at all well for you, now of all the versions of fedora that I have tried I continue to stay with 13 since from 15 onwards it has not given me good results in various teams. As Juan Carlos says, SElinux can only be deactivated, now its use depends on the user, there are those who use it and others do not, on the other hand, KDE for it to flow well you have to deactivate some things before occupying it. that I would have liked an analysis with another distro too! greetings and thanks for your work.

  4.   zulander said

    I have been using Comice OS with gnome shell for eight months and it runs the best ... the gnome even with its shortcomings and remodeling limitations that they gave it, is very good with some other settings. I use an hp netbook with an Atom processor, but I'm thinking of trying xfce to see how it goes ...

  5.   Juan Carlos said

    @Manuel_Sar Did you edit the grub.conf for the brightness control issue? If you didn't, as root do:

    I opened the file / etc / default / grub

    There you will find a line

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX = »………… blablablabla»

    Edit that line so that it fits you:

    GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX = »rd.md = 0 rd.lvm = 0 rd.dm = 0 SYSFONT = True rd.luks = 0 KEYTABLE = en LANG = en_US.UTF-8 rhgb quiet acpi_backlight = vendor acpi_osi = linux».

    Save the file and run (always as root):

    grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

    Restart the system, you should already be able to control the brightness from the keyboard.

    regards

    1.    elav said

      I control the brightness of Xfce with the keys intended for it without touching anything ... 😕

      1.    Juan Carlos said

        Yes, but in Fedora you have to edit it… .what are you going to do? I found no laptop on which Fedora grabbed the brightness controls.

      2.    Matias said

        +1
        What strange computer do those who can't control brightness use? hehe ..

        It depends on the video driver, because the support is configured by default. It could happen that they have to change the keyboard configuration (Because it does not detect the Fn keys), or they try adding the plugin for the «Brilo Plugin» panel.

        1.    left handed said

          On computers with intel core from the last, sandy bridge has not worked for me with any distro by default, I have always had to add the acpi_backlight to make it work

          1.    Matias said

            If I understand..
            My answer was more ironic. Because the article says that "XFCE and LXDE: They do not have the monitor brightness manager" and they both do. That is why I said that it must be the video or the keys, and if not, use the plugin to see that the option to configure it exists. It also talks about setting it up with jupiter, but (at least the version I have) jupiter doesn't set the brightness. If the performance profile .. =)

  6.   Windousian said

    On my netbook the KDE desktop works better than Windows 7 Starter. Mind you, I don't like the default settings for netbooks. It's a strange desk that doesn't have any advantage over "normal". You have to change almost everything to make it work as it should.

    Xfce and LXDE are lighter but also more limited environments (recommended for teams that don't get along with Plasma, Unity or GNOME Shell).

    1.    elav said

      I attest to this. In the Netbook that I now occupy I have KDE installed on Debian and although I made some adjustments, I removed some options and effects, it works quite well.

  7.   Traveler said

    I also ended up leaving XFCE and LXDE, because Gnome and KDE did make the performance drop with a couple of applications open.

    In the case of LXDE, it does not make it ugly once configured, that if leaving it as standard is a hit in sight.

    1.    Martin said

      "It is a blow to the eye."
      What HDP! x'D

  8.   auroszx said

    I have tried both Fedora LXDE and Xfce (Beefy Miracle) and I liked them a lot, they are quite simple, and I am one of those who deactivate SELinux and Firewall, in addition to uninstalling the ABRT alert system.

  9.   jotaele said

    I had Fedora 16 and 17 Xfce on an old laptop and the performance was excellent. On how bad LXDE and Xfce look, please folks! With a bit of configuration and customization you can make both environments look and work great.

  10.   VaryHeavy said

    I installed OpenSuse with KDE on a friend's netbook, with an Intel Atom and 1 GB of RAM, I was giving it a bit of a fight and the truth is that the behavior was excellent, it didn't lock up and it worked fast. Obviously that also depends on how many applications you have open at the same time, but measuring a little the experience can be quite good.
    Nor did he ever come to me with any complaints.

  11.   NayosX said

    The problem of the Gnome application drawer occurs everywhere (even in the 4 cores of my PC), although it is no longer like the Gnome 2.X (with regard to customization) it is the best option in my view, I never liked LXDE along with KDE (although KDE version 4.9 looks great, but it reminds me a lot of the windows explorer and interface) and the one that I agree with is XFCE, the best option for netbooks, although I have noticed that it takes life out of the battery (it consumes it faster than with Gnome), but it is worth it for the extra performance it gives you when using it on a netbook, is all I have to say (PS: FEDORA IS GREAT)

  12.   proper said

    "In the special case of XFCE, this desk surprised me, as it looks quite pleasing to the eye, ..."

    @Manuel_SAR, is the default Fedora Xfce desktop nice to you? for me it is horrible, the colors are good and the wallpaper also xDDD

    But nothing that a while of enchulamiento can not improve.

    Regards (:

    1.    VaryHeavy said

      I think the same.

  13.   Rolo said

    In gnome the issue of "applications" getting slow also happens on powerful PCs.

    I have not tried either gnome shell, or kde4 on a neetbock, but unity on a neetbock bango that brought a super proprietary wifi / bluetooth and that drove me crazy to install. The truth is that the gossip was very good and much better than with win7, also the owner was very happy.

    what seems strange to me is that federation was always lighter than ubuntu. Of course, there are times that from one hardware to another there is a world of differences.