Best Lightweight Desktop Environment for Ubuntu

Maybe some of you have installed Ubuntu on old computer. You are not running any task for your computer, but it still run slowly. Sometimes it makes you angry and crazy. Moreover while you make a document or produce something, your computer hang and freezes, and you haven’t save it yet.

In my opinion you need to change your desktop environment. Maybe it runs slowly when you use GNOME, but it run smoothly when you use other interface. So in this post I will share best lightweight user interface for Ubuntu.

Lightweight Desktop Environment for Ubuntu

LXDE

Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment (LXDE) is an extremly fast-performing and energy-saving desktop environment. It is maintained by international community. It can run in Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, and OpenSUSE. Even it can also run in OpenSolaris and BSD. I used this desktop environment, in my opinion this is the best for lightweight desktop environment.

How to get it? Just type these to Terminal

sudo apt-get install lxde

You can choose LXDE mode in Log On screen.

Unity-2D

Unity 2D is a lightweight desktop environment and interface that can run smoothly in non-accelerated hardwares. Actually, Unity’s goal is to provide Unity desktop shell on hardware that cannot currently supported by Unity’s OpenGL requirements.

Unity 2D is a default themes for Ubuntu 12.04, but if you use others version maybe you cannot find Unity on your Ubuntu computer, so you can install it by type these

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unity-2d-team/unity-2d-daily

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install unity-2d

Lubuntu

Lubuntu is a fast and lightweight operating system developed by a community of Free and Open Source enthusiasts. The core of the system is based on Linux and Ubuntu . Lubuntu uses the minimal desktop LXDE, and a selection of light applications. Many people said that Lubuntu is faster than LXDE and becomes the most lightweight desktop environment. By currently I have not try it yet, maybe in the future I will try it and give some opinion.

How to get it? Just type below to the terminal

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop

Xubuntu

Xubuntu is a Canonical Ltd. recognized.  It is maintained by Ubuntu Community . Xubuntu is based on XFCE that provide you fewer system resources. The developer claimed that Xubuntu can be used on computer with 128 MB of RAM and they recommend 256 MB of RAM.

Just type below to install it

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

Now you can enjoy your old PC! 🙂