Lubuntu For Linux

Welcome to the Quantal Quetzal edition of Lubuntu, a free, open source and easy-to-use distribution of Linux derived from Ubuntu and built around the LXDE desktop environment. It is a modern and familiar operating system suitable for low-end systems.

This Lubuntu release was officially announced by Canonical on October 18, 2012 and was supported with security updates and patches until May 16, 2014. It can be downloaded as Live CDs and Installation CDs that support the 32-bit, 64-bit, 64-bit Mac and PPC (PowerPC) architectures.

While the user will be able to start the live environment, use it as-is from the live media without installing anything, as well to install it on a local disk drive using the graphical installer from the Desktop CD edition, the Alternate CD flavor can be used to install the entire operating system using a text-mode installer, as well as to rescue a broken OS.

Lubuntu 12.10 uses the same productive, clean and fast desktop environment that was delivered in the past couple years in this Ubuntu derivative, LXDE (Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment), providing users with a traditional layout comprised of a single taskbar from where they can launch apps, interact with running programs, as well as to switch between virtual workspaces.

Default applications include the Sylpeed email client, Transmission torrent downloader, Chromium web browser, Audacious music player, GNOME MPlayer video player, GPicView image viewer, AbiWord word processor, Gnumeric spreadsheet editor, Leafpad text editor, and Pidgin instant messenger.

The Xfburn CD/DVD burning software, guvcview webcam viewer, mtPaind graphic editor, Simple Scan image scanner, Catfish file search tool, Disks disk manager, PCManFM file manager, LXTerminal terminal emulator and Xpad note-taking app are installed by default.

Overall, Lubuntu 12.10 proves once again that it is possible to install a productive, yet modern operating system into computers from 5 to 10 years ago that use very old hardware components and as little as 256MB of RAM.