Xubuntu minimal Linux distribution on a Lenovo X200 laptop

How would Xubuntu minimal distribution work on an old Lenovo X200 laptop?

I had installed a full Xubuntu ditribution previously but the laptop lagged whenever browsing on the Internet or doing simple tasks. I should say that I have upgraded hardware first with an 120 SSD hard disk and 8 GB of RAM. So I wanted to give Xubuntu minimal a try.

With the installation from an USB image for Xubuntu 24.04.3 LTS, long time support version, there are two options; minimal and full. So I picked up minimal. The only thing is that there is no applications installed, no Internet browser, no software or disk managers, no printer manager or Android USB connection. And that is the good thing about it, that you can add everything little by little kwnowing that at the end you will get the best performance and optimization for your Lenovo X200.

And here are the steps to configure and install the simple things that will keep your Lenovo X200 rocking. And these instructions will also work for many others laptops.

After install upgrade system

Once the installation is finished upgrade/update everything.

sudo apt update 

sudo apt upgrade

Brave browser

Rmemeber, there is no browser installed, for privacy and performance reasons I use Brave as my first option for Internet browsing.

You need cURL to install Brave browser, so first:

sudo apt install curl

And then:

curl -fsS https://dl.brave.com/install.sh | sh curl -fsS https://dl.brave.com/install.sh | sh brave-browser

Sublime text editor

This is one of my favourite editors that I use it for many things

wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add - echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install sublime-text

Firefox browser

I like to have to two browsers to separate things: Firefox is for mail, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail, and only for that. And Brave browser is for everything else. So now is the turn to install Firefox.

sudo apt install firefox

Gnome sotftware manager

A software manager is sometimes handy to manage software without using the command line.

sudo apt install gnome-software

Neofetch

Neofetch is a text information tool to display hardware information with nice colors, which can even be installed on Android phones, but that is another story.

sudo apt install neofetch

htop

A system monitoring tool to check the laptop performance.

sudo snap install htop

Vim

I am getting to be an ex-vimmer for reasons I will explain in another article, but for now I am also adding it.

sudo apt install vim

gnome-disk utility

Useful to check disks and create USB bootable.

sudo apt install gnome-disk-utility

Archive and zip utilities

sudo apt install thunar-archive-plugin

Vlc for reading media

With VLC you can hear music and watch videos and it is very light.

sudo snap install vlc

Adjust Screen Gamma and make changes permanent

Change screen gamma for more comfort to the eyes.

xrandr

to see screen name, in this case is LVDS-1

xrandr --output LVDS-1 --gamma 0.7:0.7:0.7

I have not found the way to make changes permanent yet

Fix screen freeze after suspend

The problem was the lock screen configuration, this is how I solved it

So open "XFCE Screensaver"

Click on tab "Lock screen"

Then uncheck "Enable lock screen"

I know this is a wild solution but it keeps laptop from freezing.

Connect android phone via USB

To connect the Android phone to the laptop and browse and copy or save files, install the necessary packages.

sudo apt-get install mtp-tools jmtpfs libudisks2-dev gvfs-backends

Then reboot laptop

Image viewer

Installed Ristretto, this time with Software Manager

Printer manager

sudo apt install system-config-printer

Simple scan

sudo apt install simple-scan

Purge if necesary

sudo apt autoremove