Help out a newbie Xubuntu user?

[innerslytherin]

Hi everyone! I've read through the entries about Linux and netbooks, and thanks to everyone who has shared their knowledge.

I have a post at my personal journal about my Acer netbook and having just installed Xubuntu. I'm hoping I can get tips from people in this community as to how I can, well, prettify my system a little.

I'm also interested in your recommendations for word processing apps. Xubuntu came with Abiword, which I have used a handful of times. Are there other programs that are better? (Background: I've been a Windows and Microsoft Word ever since I left DOS and PFS First Choice as a high schooler, and I am, generally speaking, a fan of Microsoft Word, in that it's never given me problems.) I don't want to bog my system down with more program than it can handle, given that I have 1 GB of memory and a 1.66 GHz processor, but I definitely want to know my options.

And while we're at it, what about blog clients? I'm using DW, LJ, and WordPress, so something that can handle all of those would be great, but any of the three would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance! So far I'm loving my Linux experience, and I'm already planning to fix my mom's laptop by installing Ubuntu on it for her. :)

Comments

[amianym]

LibreOffice is a fork of OpenOffice and it's what I use (unless I'm in the mood to fight with Calligra...) I haven't used OpenOffice recently enough to recommend one over the other; either should work well enough for your situation.

Also wow *buntus are *so* not what I'd pick for a netbook but oh well :U

[kerravonsen]

Xubuntu isn't bad, it's more lightweight than the other *buntus because it uses Xfce4 as the default desktop environment.

[innerslytherin]

:P Honestly, I went with a friend's suggestion of Xubuntu because of the XFCE mention, and because when I looked into the *buntu distros, they seemed easy enough for a noob to learn on. I did enough research to figure out Linux wouldn't make me tear my hair out, and then jumped in blind.

Out of curiosity, what would you suggest for a netbook and why? So far I'm pleased with Xubuntu, but I'm definitely open to learning new stuff, and now that I know Linux doesn't have to be terrifying, I'm willing to experiment more! :)

[amianym]

On my netbook I'm using Chakra Linux. I'm a big KDE fan, but for KDE to be practical on a netbook the base has to be veeeery lightweight, as with Chakra. Gentoo or Arch would of course be lighter, but I'm not up for such an involved installation. I've previously recommended LMDE to people who do not share my tastes, but I haven't tried it myself. When I used Ubuntu, aside from hating Unity and GNOME, I got some really bizarre bugs and it felt sluggish.

[kerravonsen]

I found that ArchBang is much easier to install than Arch, and you end up with a system that is Arch-compatible. And I use Fvwm as my window-manager, because I like having total control over everything. And it is lightweight too.