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
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