I tried Lubuntu 20.04. I wish I didn’t.
I have never seen any more horrible Linux distribution than this in my entire lifetime. And I assure you that I have tested at least +200 Linux distributions in that short life so far.
We did a review a year ago about Lubuntu 19.04, citing many bugs and issues we found. You would be disappointed to know that almost all of these bugs are still right there in 20.04 as well.
Today, we deliver even more discovered issues and bugs than before.
Lubuntu 20.04 Review
Desktop Environment
This is the default Lubuntu 20.04 desktop:
LXQt is still a horrible desktop environment, despite the fact that it has been around for years now.
The same issue of brightness management on laptops in Lubuntu 19.04 is still there in 20.04; You can not adjust brightness from any widget on the panel, you have to open a separate window for brightness adjustment and keep that damn window open all the time so that you can change brightness in different periods of the day (A reminder that using keyboard shortcuts does not give you the desired brightness level in LXQt):
Also, the same keyboard shortcuts issue is still there; You create a new shortcut, only to discover that it doesn’t work. LXQt does not automatically remove the old shortcut if it uses the same key of the new shortcut, instead, it keeps both of them and expects you to choose the behavior you want to run when you hit the key:
Notice how there are two battery icons on the panel, each representing a different battery in my laptop. While any other sane desktop environment would display both of them in the same indicator so that it doesn’t create a visual pollution on the panel:
If you open the panel configuration window, you’ll see that you can not resize it vertically, only horizontally. And it is such an transition when you do so:
Do you wonder why we opened the panel configuration window? Because we wanted to figure out how to add some damn launchers to the panel, but we discovered that this is an impossible task in LXQt.
You literally can’t add icons to the panel:
It looks like the developers’ solution to this problem was only by expecting users to create a new quick launch area, and then dragging the wanted icons for each area:
At this point I was wondering whether all of this is real or not?
I open the file manager, and it is displayed in this layout for me by default, there’s no attention to details or even basic UX in LXQt:
The issue you would notice in the file manager is that there’s no context-menu item to open the current folder in the terminal:
There’s one to open the selected folder in terminal, so they expect you to go back up by a level, and then open the folder in the terminal using that menu, and then go back to the folder again:
In their defense, there’s an option to open the folder in the terminal, but only in the “Tool” menu in the upper menu of the file manager, not in the context menu:
If you drag and drop any file/folder to any other folder, it won’t be moved there automatically. Instead, a menu would appear asking you what to do?
One area of improvement, however, is that they finally added an option for “Thumbnail view” in the file chooser dialog (Before in the 19.04 release, you would never be able to see the image before you select it):
If you try to remove a file, you would normally just use Shift + Delete and hit Enter, but in LXQt the default option is set to No unlike all the other desktop environments on Linux, so you have to also use the Left key and then press Enter:
One area to be credited, however, is that the panel appearance is very customizable; You can adjust its text and background colors, along with making it use a different icon theme then your desktop icon theme:
Closing the lid of the laptop does nothing in Lubuntu 20.04; There’s an option to change that from the power settings, but by default, if you close the lid of your laptop it would continue to run just like before.
Programs & Accessories
Lubuntu 20.04 uses a system monitor program called qps. The issue with it – apart from its interface being quite horrible – is that normally you would be monitoring the performance of a specific window:
And then in few seconds, it’s gone!
The program does not fix the location of the items in the window list. Instead, it changes them continuously per each second, so would have to click on that red underlined button to stop the monitoring, and then inspect the program you want to monitor.
But guess what? Since you stopped the monitoring (in order to not lose the current program you monitor because its location is changing), you also stopped updating the performance matrices (RAM, CPU.. etc), so this rendered the entire point of system monitoring useless. What’s the point of even using this app right now?
Remember the non-working drawing icons in the image viewer in Lubuntu 19.04? Thankfully, they work this time:
However, Ctrl + Z shortcut for undoing the unwanted changes does not work here. So if you just made a small mistake while you are modifying the image, you have to close the entire thing and start over.
Also, it doesn’t ask you to save your modifications before existing, so if you forget to do so by mistake, all your changes are gone.
One good feature we found (finally!) is that you can upload the currently opened image automatically to an online service:
And a list of supported services will be displayed:
It would return the URL of the uploaded image once it’s finished:
The default text editor in Lubuntu 20.04 is Featherpad, it is safe to say that it initially works well and is full of customization options:
A graphical password manager called QtPass is shipped by default in Lubuntu. But you would get the following error if you try to run it:
Makes you wonder why they didn’t install GPG by their selves if it is a dependency, too?
Then it would display this window for you, where no users are listed to choose from and also both the OK and Cancel button are not working at all:
If you close that window by the x button at the top right window, the following window will appear:
Which if you close, now a new cycle of error messages would appear starting from the following image, again:
You have to keep closing the following windows, until you finally reach the standalone window of the program:
And after all of this effort… You would discover that the program does not work 🙂
The final issue we ran into was that you can not resize maximized windows without hitting the “unmaximize” button first. E.g If you have the file manager window open and maximized, then normally on other desktops you can simply drag the title bar down and it will be automatically unmaximized and windowed for you. But this is not the case in LXQt, you have to hit the button by yourself. (Same as in 19.04).
Performance
Lubuntu 20.04 uses 358MB of RAM after a fresh boot:
mhsabbagh@fosspost:~$ free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 3369 358 2509 29 501 2761
Swap: 0 0 0
And boots in 8.7 seconds:
mhsabbagh@fosspost:~$ systemd-analyze
Startup finished in 3.427s (kernel) + 8.791s (userspace) = 12.218s
graphical.target reached after 8.740s in userspace
Conclusion
So here ends the nightmare of Lubuntu 20.04.
We recommend not even wasting time and downloading this release, as it is full of errors and bugs as you have seen. It would be better to search for some XFCE or MATE powered distributions to try instead of this.
One would have hoped that the bugs we covered in the Lubuntu 19.04 review would be fixed by this release, but sadly, the bugs are increasing and not decreasing.
You can check our reviews for other flavors of Ubuntu 20.04 from this timeline:
If you tried Lubuntu 20.04 we would like to hear you comments about it in the form below.
Hanny is a computer science & engineering graduate with a master degree, and an open source software developer. He has created a lot of open source programs over the years, and maintains separate online platforms for promoting open source in his local communities.
Hanny is the founder of FOSS Post.
People reacted to this story.
Show comments Hide commentsThe reason, you get the same bugs as in 19.04 is, that lxqt component are practically the same in 20.04. Reason is, that due problem with release manager, there was no never lxqt environment release in meantime. Details in https://github.com/lxqt/lxqt/issues/1779
Never version of lxqt is now released (to late for Lubuntu 20.04) so if it will get packaged for Ubuntu (maintainer is the same person, as defunct release manager), 20.10 could be in much better shape. In meantime, you can taste by installing in Arch (trough Manjaro probably?).
Then it is a sad conclusion that they have reached such situation in the first place.
I would have to review LXQt in a better distro then, and give my apologies if the latest versions do not contain these bugs.
Try Sparkylinux. I love it on my Netbook. It has become my go to distro. It’s implementation of LXQT is quite polished and runs on Debian.
I’ve tested it on Manjaro, the community version using LXQt is less buggy than the Ubuntu version, even though it’s a rolling-release kinda distro.
I also noticed a huge quantity of daemons and services enabled by default on the Lubuntu version. I think it also can make performance decreases and boot process longer.
List of enabled daemons/services: systemctl list-unit-files –state=enabled –no-pager
List of what is enabled during boot: systemd-analyze blame
For a distro that cares about being lightweight, fast, well… it’s fully bloated, IMO.
“If you open the panel configuration window, you’ll see that you can not resize it vertically, only horizontally.”
“The final issue we ran into was that you can not resize maximized windows without hitting the “unmaximize” button first.”
I hear you! I have to use macOS Catalina at work, same annoyance there.
Here we are again. Trying to make distro that is good for the newbie and for someone that is an active Linux user. Some of the nuances you point out should be included for newbies so they don’t wreck the system. Bugs, not so much. There are always going to be areas you cannot test for or expect. Newer distros will always take time to debug and iron out the glitches especially given the vast amount of hardware they are expected to be compatible with.
I have not used linux in years because of the apps I needed all ran on windows, but I did give Ubuntu 20.04 a spin a couple days ago and if I were just using a browser, it was quite fast, compared to what I remember. However, it didn’t shut down properly for some reason. Well, back to work. . .
[@Gregory Chester says Lubuntu is good for a newbie]. How is it good for a newbie when Calamares is a disaster? It complains that the ESP flag isn’t set — when there’s no ESP flag to set! The process of creating a GPT table fails for no apparent reason. That was happening 6 months before Lubuntu was released. They could have gone back to Ubiquiti. Instead, they expected everyone to *stab in the dark* forever, hoping some pattern would emerge. They didn’t expect Calamares to provide more detailed error reporting (the context of what happened). They wouldn’t even enable extended debug/error reporting as a *default* to help find a pattern (with a random error). They litterally expected people to spend *countless* hours shooting in the dark. I spent weeks on it only to learn that it was something they’d known about for *MONTHS*, and didn’t even respect their volunteers’ time enough to enable enhanced debug error reporting as a default. They complain about how they don’t have enough help — and then squander the help they have.
Bring back Mario!
I just went back to 18.04. True, it was a nightmare.
This version is so dated, how do you guys manage to live in such dated environment? I would go insane.
By the way, 18.04 is an LTS release and is to be supported up to 2023, AFAIR.
My experience was great. I think is not normally or giustified put a low point valutation for a personal experience.
Many persons may appreciate what you sede Mike waste of time:
Easy installation
Easy driver recognition
Ready office and standard applications
Repeat, 4 me that’s perfect.
I use Lubuntu knowing it’s not fully featured. It’s reasonably lightweight & fast on older systems. It’s a step up from Fluxbox which is all I really expect from a windowing manager.
It’s not that fast or lightweight compared to other distros and DE’s. In my humble opinion, people seem to overastimate Ubuntu and its flavors and they keep ignoring other options.
This seems a bit harsh. Some of the annoyances for you, I would actually consider features, like shift+delete not defaulting to “yes”. But apart from that, good review. Hopefully people get involved in contributing fixes and features. I would hate to see the LXDE/LXQt community fade to oblivion, though I don’t use it myself.
I deliberately did this because a good review should give the reader everything; The good, the bad and the ugly. Yes some of them are minor UX issues, but highlighting them is important to inform the reader that there’s a difference in the default UX experience in LXQt than the other desktop environments (E.g GNOME, Xfce and MATE do not do this, regardless of the debate whether it’s good or bad).
I liked some customization options they provided, beside other things I mentioned in the article. I wish them a better luck in the development too and that they work harder.
But disappointment of seeing the same bugs after 1 year was too embittered in my mouth.
Wanted a light weight distro for a 12 year old HP Pavilion, originally provided with MS Vista. Seems like the Lubuntu sweet spot, right? WiFi drivers not native in the Lubuntu 20.04 kernel. Found them and loaded after a search. Could not render any Open Office document into PDF despite using three different PDF read/ write programs. All I got was a blank page. Most annoying was the random “clicking” of the PC’s audio speakers. Added the power manager code found on various blogs. No solution. In fact I might argue the speaker “clicking” problem became slightly worse.
Abandoned Lubuntu 20.04, downloaded and installed Xubuntu 20.04. All of the above problems non-existant with that distro. Broadcom WiFi drivers native, PDF docs render, no annoying speaker clicking.
Xubuntu 20.04 using 463 MB of RAM post fresh boot.
Could not agree more with Hanny’s article… do not waste your time.
Go to SliTaz or AntiX
Lubuntu is bloated and overrated!
Can you provide links to the bugs you submitted please, so we can track progress?
People typically mistake the users of a specific OSS to the people who actually talk about it in the media, which is absolutely not true. I do not use Lubuntu, nor any of the other +20 distributions that we have reviewed here on FOSS Post, nor do I intend to. Instead, our job as a media organization is to tell people about our impressions and what to expect, and whether they would face any issues just like we did or not. This is what reviews are about, you won’t find anyone anywhere else reviewing all these distributions and then also submitting 30 or 40 bug reports for each distribution he/she tries.
Some people from the Lubuntu team ridiculously commented on our previous article, both on our website and also on their Discourse forum (We know who’s talking about us by the way thanks to referral links, if anyone is interested), so they already know about all our issues since 19.04 review a year ago.
I’m all for honest reviews, but this felt like complete click-bait with the title.
The Lubuntu devs have worked hard, for free, and sure, there may be some issues, but actually most of them are to do with the DE, which if I’m not mistaken is a separate project, available on other distros, so maybe you filed the aforementioned issues there, or submitted your PRs?
The whole tone of the article is unconstructive and negative and not what the FOSS community needs.
I, for one, will not be visiting this site again.
Some Lubuntu devs are also devs of the LXQt. The entire point of Lubuntu is that it ships with LXQt, so the desktop environment is a main core component of the distro. There’s no point in even discussing what Lubuntu is without LXQt.
We also worked hard, for free, in writing the review which you claim to be a click-bait, and spent weeks of testing and hours of writing this piece, for free.
The tone of the article is important so that responsible people get motivated to take care, and interested people to know what’s coming for them if they download it.
We have no issue with you not visiting the site again. It sounds that there’s an assumption that visits do pay for content, which is not true.
It seems these Lubuntu devs are wasting the time downvoting comments here… Yeah, instead of doing this, they could’ve improved Lubuntu/LXQt.
But it seems they have more important things to do than working on their lovely buggy LXQt
Hard to know how seriously to take this review, when it seems at least one of your complaints is based on you not knowing how to use a common GUI program: In both screenshots of the task-manager thingy, whatever it was called (“qps”?), there is a downward-pointing arrow next to the column header “%CPU”. This usually indicates that the rows are sorted according ro the values in this column.
When a column with rapidly changing values, like CPU usage, is selected rows will switch places accordingly, and what was the top line one instant may drop to the bottom — and out of sight — the next. If one wants to concentrate on some particular program in stead, one needs to sort by some less changeable value like PID or command line.
It could be that the rest of your criticisms, of stuff I _don’t_ know as well as a bog-standard GUI task manager, are all valid… Or that they are just as way off as this. Judging from the whole tone and feel of the article, I wouldn’t be surprised if the latter turns out to be the case.
Hard to know seriously how to take this comment, when you are trying to throw everything mentioned in an article of 1500 words in one bucket and then claiming that everything in it could be wrong because you didn’t understand one point in it (Like, what’s the relationship between not being able to create a launcher on the panel and qps not functioning?). Probably it shows that you are biased toward your unconfirmed claims, or that you are just trying to have fun.
Regarding your point, yes, I know that I am sorting using the CPU column, but the program removes the process you monitor out of the view continuously because of how frequently it updates the view and does not fix the view around your selected item, so it becomes an impossible task to monitor anything in this way under real use cases because you will have to scroll up and down and search again for what you were monitoring. Moreover – which is more important – is that even if you open the program and leave it on the default view after install… It would still very quickly update the view and remove items and put items under each other. So in both cases, you’ll have to pause, but if you pause, then you lost your live metrics of RAM/CPU and others.
Funny, I can’t see why it should be hard for you to judge how seriously to take my comment, given that I told you exactly what it is based on: Knowing how to use a graphical task manager. All the rest is beyond my ken; I had never heard either of this distribution nor of you and your site before this article happened to swim by in my newsflow, so, as I said: I judged the review by this single point because that was the only thing I could judge it by.
But your reply was enlightening, so now I know a little more what to think about your review:
Dang! You guys are tearing each other apart! I realize that everyone has different opinions (I, for one, love Lubuntu 20.04), but you don’t have to verbally kill each other over it! Everyone’s likes and dislikes are different when it comes to computers – some people absolutely LOVE Windows 10. (I am not one of these people.) So, voice your opinions, make a good discussion, and DON’T tear each other to pieces! “But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.” Galatians 5:15 King James Version.
I really hope they keep the filemanager’s feature to ask what you want to do when you release a dragged file, I love it. I consider filemanagers as very unpolite, clumsy and just horrible which don’t ask and instantly move. I really miss this feature in Xfce’s Thunar.
I’m context menu fan, so I agree. there should be a context menu entry for the terminal in the current folder. But pressing F4 instead is a fast workaround I can live with.
Lubuntu with LXDE was great, I loved to tweak it to my needs – LXQt is ookeey but does not have the charme and flexibility AFAIK. Nonetheless Lubuntu 20.04 is not that bad as you describe it. Some “bugs” are features other people appreciate. And always keep in mind it’s meant to be a lightweight distro. Those who want more should e.g. use Xubuntu or Kubuntu – but beware, KDE’s filemanager Dolphin also asks you when dragging a file 😉 .
I also didn’t like LXQt and I find it as an eternal beta.
I see LXQt as an extremely limited version of KDE Plasma. Most of the programs they use are from the KDE project. It does not have its own programs. They need to improve a lot the DE, sorry but I expected more from a LTS. I tested it here and found it too buggy to be usable so I wouldn’t recommend it for old PCs, I’d better search for an alternative. The LTS version using LXDE won’t be there forever and sooner will drop support.
OMG! Ubuntu and Reddit users hating on facts.
It seems to be a crime making criticisms to anything Ubuntu-related or is just me?
Hey hey Lubuntu is my love, she needs support not kicking! I can’t live without Lubuntu!
Use mx linux or manjaro they are better.(Or even voidlinux)
MX Linux is my favorite. But, it’s not lightweight. Manjaro’s Xfce flavor was huge when I compared memory usage of 20 distros a few months ago. Linux Lite 5.0 would be my alternative to Lubuntu. Maybe Sparky (I didn’t like Sparky’s forcing obfuscated passwords the last time I looked at it). Antix is excellent for low-resource hardware. But, a little rough around the edges (like Puppy). Maybe not great for new users. Bodhi is small. But, again, it’s workflow is odd (not intuitive).
The copy-or-move menu thing in the file manager comes from kde, and to be Frank, I actually like it.
Iinux have lot problem but hope report them…
For my old-age laptop(2010), I would like to appreciate Lubuntu and LxQT desktop. I had tried Linux Mint Xfce 19.3 but the panel problem (sometimes went back to Xfce classical panel (small mouse icon?) after reboot! Where is the Linx mint Xfce panel??? crazy!) always makes me crazy! Manjaro Linux made my CPU fan crazy running and extreme hot! After shifting to Lubuntu, the system is extreme stable without any known problem. I use WPS office in stead of Opne office and it works fine! Statistics R program also works perfectly! Lubuntu has extended the life of my old Acer 4810TZG laptop!
Hey, thanks for the review! Now, I do use Lubuntu 20.04 quite a bit. In fact, I am writing this comment from a computer that runs Lubuntu 20.04. Now, I hadn’t initially run into most of the bugs that you mention, so I went through the review carefully and tested all of the problems that you mentioned. I wrote this mini-review inside yours so that users who are looking into Lubuntu don’t think that all hope is lost – some people enjoy the system. Here’s some rebuttals to the issues you mentioned.
1: Lubuntu works great on older computers, even when running from a slow SD card plugged into a card reader in the side of the computer. The thing is lightning fast. This alone makes all the other problems vanish into nothing in my opinion. I wouldn’t list it as unstable – it puts up with way more gibberish than Windows or some other Linux variants ever tolerated. I’ve removed files from core areas of the system to make certain menu entries go away (something that KXStudio didn’t like), I’ve run virtualization software and used several programs on the physical machine on the same time, and I’ve even accidentally hard-booted it immediately after saving new files by jerking the power cord out of the socket on accident, and the files stayed! I thought that its stability rocked.
2: I may not enjoy LXQt as much as I liked KDE, but you must admit that it takes the excuse of a desktop environment that Windows provides, and beats it into a lumpy custard. A lousy lumpy custard. LXQt is much better than Windows by far.
3: I can make the screen brightness change using the keys on my keyboard. (I’m using an HP Pavilion dv7-3000. You use the “fn” key along with f7 to reduce brightness, and fn+f8 to increase it. Your computer may work differently, depending on the keyboard layout.) Sorry that the same feature didn’t work on your computer for some reason.
4: The panel configuration window resizes vertically just fine – you just have to sorta “catch” the bottom of the window with your mouse.
5: The dual-icons for dual-batteries idea I think is very convenient – while I haven’t experienced it since I only have single-battery laptops, it looks nice, and I would like to see what battery is charged, not an annoying average of the two where my computer might actually be ready to go and it looks like it’s not quite charged.
6: Adding icons to the panel is not only possible, but easy. Open the app menu in the lower-left corner, navigate to the program you want, and drag-n-drop it into the area with the launchers (along with the File Manager and Firefox). Presto – new icon!
7: I kinda liked the file manager layout. Sorry, but I thought it was nice. Maybe it’s just because I used to be a full-on Windows user, and the changes that Lubuntu brings were a breath of fresh air. But I still sorta liked it.
8: The feature of a drag-n-drop bringing up a menu rather than just moving the item was very convenient for me. I used Windows for long, and in Windows, a drag-n-drop automatically moves when dragging between locations on the same drive, but copies when dragging between two different drives. This drove me nuts, especially when backing up data so that I could free space on my computer. I love being able to tell Lubuntu what I actually meant this time.
9: I’ve accidentally deleted files I didn’t mean to delete before. Permanently. While it is initially annoying to have “don’t delete this” as the default for the Shift+Delete feature, it has saved me a couple of times.
10: You can fix the problem with qps by sorting by PID, then doing a search for the program you want to monitor.
OK, so that’s the end of me contradicting you. I did find that some of your problems were there, and were pretty bad. Here’s where I agree with you:
1: I can’t really comment on the keyboard shortcut reassignment – I’ve never tried it. But this does seem like lame problem for those of us who like remapped shortcuts.
2: I didn’t know there was a terminal button in the Tools menu of the file manager! Thanks for finding that workaround! I missed that feature from KDE.
3: Not quite sure how you figured out to get the Annotation Tools in LXImage to work, but they didn’t work for me at all. Not being able to undo also seems lame. Now, I’m a GIMP user, so I never would have caught this problem since I never would have even opened LXImage, but that should be fixed. That is the fault of the LXImage programmer, however, not necessarily Lubuntu’s fault.
4: The problem with GnuPG not being installed, making QtPass unusable, is pretty lame. Fortunately, most users know how to install new software through the package manager. But the barrage of windows that QtPass hits you with thereafter… ?!? That just shy of drove me crazy. So, for those of you who are going to use Lubuntu 20.04… install GnuPG before launching QtPass!
And, finally, there was two extra problems I noticed, though I’m not sure if these are problems with the OS or with my computer:
1: You can’t reformat SD cards through KDE Partition Manager. Flash drives work just fine, but if you plug an SD card into the card slot, it just won’t do it. (It must not want to scan mmcblk0 for some reason.) But if you plug the SD card into a USB card reader, you can reformat it just fine. This threw me for a loop, but was easy to get around with a card reader.
2: Unless you use the USB card reader, you cannot install Lubuntu to an SD card, no matter how hard you may try. It just won’t install, and if you install it to a card with the card reader, and then try to boot it from the card slot (changing the necessary system files and getting the kernel to load from the USB drive first), it will start to boot, and then freeze. Fortunately, the amazing performance it provides made using it through a USB card reader more than acceptable.
So, anyway, thanks for the review! I’m glad that you found some workarounds to problems I had noticed, and I was happy to show some workaround to problems you had noticed. I hope you have a good day!
Funny how the last good version of Lubuntu was LXDE not LXQT. lets face it Lubuntu is dead. Even when everything is fixed it will have no clear advantage over XFCE. I guess there maybe a small crowd who want a QT based system that is lighter-weight then KDE. That does seem like a niche user-base though.
Everyone says LXDE is not longer maintained. This does not appear to be true. While LXQT is receiving more attention there is still work being done on LXDE and quite honestly I feel its a way better option.
LXQt is competing against KDE. It’s a dead end. Moving LXDE forward would have been a much more relevant.
LXDE is disconnected as far as I know, anyone developing it?
I am an advanced user rather than an IT professional. For me, lubuntu 20.04 violates the key principle of a good OS: it lacks backward compatibility. MY COMPUTER SHOULD NOT CHANGE SUBSTANTIALLY JUST BECAUSE I INSTALLED AN UPDATE. I have other things to do rather than checking how much of my personalisation and fine-tuning survived. So, in the meantime, back to LU18.04. Then we shall see.
IMO, a large part of the problem is Ubuntu (Canonical) making all the flavors produce releases on the same schedule (whether there’s a reason to, or not). It’s like a death-march of feast/famine. Lubuntu 20.04 was clearly not ready for release (especially LTS!). But, the cult-like rigidity of Canonical requires everyone to produce a release at the same time.
I think this is a perfect example of why Linux never gains much traction against Windows as a desktop. They opened “Bug #1” (MS has market dominance). Everyone got goosebumply feelings. That bug was closed with great fanfare (and hubris) in 2013. It’s like none of this really means anything to anyone at Ubuntu/Canonical. It’s just all about “membership” (and council this, code of [whatever] that).
I spent a great deal of time testing 20.04 before it was released. It was a gigantic waste of time. All they want are people going through the motions, not actually expecting *results*.
Having had such positive experiences with Ubuntu and Lubuntu before, it’s a shame to have to be negative about Lubuntu 20.04
Ubuntu became too demanding on my laptop. It is an old laptop – that I still really like overall.
I discovered Lubunto and “Hey Presto!”. Fantastic.
Upgrade to 18.04 caused all sorts of problems.
Went back to Ubuntu and remembered why I’d switched.
Saw Lubuntu 20.04. Read good things about it. Much talk of “really still lightweight”. Installed.
Oh my, the freezing up! Programs (pre-installed) suddenly freezing and unusable, unable to kill them when mouse also froze. Reboots and then it would happen again. So many bugs in logs and config problems. Unable to access things I could usually access and finding I need to change a whole load of settings and some issues seemingly inexplicable since I am using admin/sudo in the terminal. If even admin cannot execute a fairly simple and commonly used function…what’s the point?
I discovered the above-mentioned problem with the manager – frantically trying to click on a process in the one second it stayed put.
Sadly, I think I’m going to have to re-install an older version of Lubuntu. Or something else (when support for older versions is discontinued).
I don’t much care about a snazzy looking desktop, I just want something fairly easy to use, lightweight, workable.
Lubuntu used to meet that need.
I think there is/will be always a need for “niche” products (in general, as well as tech). For me it is what drew me to Lubuntu. I worry that as more people want everything to be new and shiny and good for the latest tech, the different distros will eventually merge into essentially the same thing with a few tweaks or appearance differences as each tries to compete with each other to be the ‘better’ version of the same thing.
It is the variety in linux that is beautiful.
Not everyone can afford to buy a new laptop. (Additionally as someone on another review pointed out – ecologically/resource-speaking, why render older machines obsolete and thus have to chuck them out when it is possible to keep them working?)
I loved my old Lubuntu. It met a need. It was nice to use. I’m a bit sad to part ways.
I understand where you’re coming from. If I were you, I’d look at Linux Lite 5.0 (it’s based upon Ubuntu 20.04 LTS). Sparky might be good (it’s based upon Debian). Antix is definitely small, but doesn’t feel as natural as Lubuntu did (when it was a viable lightweight distro). It’s based on Debian too. MX Linux is a close relative to Antix, but not lightweight. But, there are people slimming it down (using Fluxbox instead of Xfce) to be a lightweight environment, but more polished/normal than Antix’s feel. Bodhi is lightweight, but its Enlightenment desktop (workflow) doesn’t feel intuitive to me. It’s small and polished. Very nice. But, I could never get the hang of it.
Also, Peppermint is lightweight too. It even is geared more toward internet apps (using something it calls ICE to create launchers). It’s almost like they are trying to create a Chromebook type of environment where everything is network apps/storage. But, you can install apps like anything else, delete the ICE launchers that come with it. (The only potential downside for Peppermint is that it’s owner/author/creator passed away Jan. 2020. The community is trying to fill those shoes, and working on version 11. Hopefully that distro will continue. But, in fairness, that’s a risk.).
Lots of options out there. I miss the traditional Lubuntu LXDE environment. That was solid and reasonably polished. I think Peppermint reminds me the most of that environment. In terms of look and feel. Some other things don’t seem the same (the Nemo file manager I don’t like. I like Thunar better.).
Are you paid to do so?
I’ve recently switched from Kubuntu 18.04 LTS to Lubuntu 20.04 LTS. The downsizing is precisely what I wanted, and I’m very happy with it. Lubuntu 20.04 LTS is giving me EXACTLY what I expected and wanted and want, though I still love Kubuntu and may one day return to it. It turns out that I’ve installed on Lubuntu most of the very same software that I was using on Kubuntu, so I’m quite at home.
It’s not bugs that you are seeing. You just need to figure out HOW to get what you want out of Lubuntu 20.04 LTS and understand its whole point. Downsizing doesn’t happen by magic: Compromises must be made to achieve it. Apparently, you just don’t like what Lubuntu is meant to be. The developers have chosen to implement compromises in unusual, creative ways, which apparently are at great odds with what you prefer.
For example, you say that you cannot add icons to the Quick-launch area. Of course you can. You just don’t know how to do it. You remove the default icons that you don’t want from the default Quick-launch area by right clicking, find a program that you want on the menu, drag and drop its icon to the Quick-launch area, and right click on it to move it into your preferred position. What’s the problem? Where’s the bug?
Lubuntu with the LXQt Desktop may force a few minor compromises, but all operating systems do. And I’ll admit that Lubuntu’s documentation could be better. I cannot stand, for example, the GNOME desktop. To me, that is the desktop from Hell. (Change font size? Sure: Large, Medium, or Small!)
However, in answer to the question “Does Lubuntu with the LXQt Desktop give you enough of what you’ll need to be satisfied?” the answer, favorably and most definitely, is a resounding “yes.” Lubuntu 20.04 LTS is stable, is quiet, and responds very, very well. To put it another way, it’s snappy and well designed.
Lubuntu is the odd man out. It does things its own way. You just need to figure out what those ways are. You’re not seeing bugs; you’re just seeing the unique Lubuntu design that you haven’t yet figured out.
If you dislike its default programs, just install what you want from the Ubuntu repository using Muon Package Manager. But don’t uninstall anything, because some Lubuntu compromises are quite creative, and you could wind up uninstalling something that shouldn’t be uninstalled. For example, I have a hunch that the default file manager is inextricably linked with the desktop. Just install your favorite file manager and launch it from the Quick-launch area; you’ll always be just one click away from it, so you won’t need to set it as the new default file manager.
I write down.
I choose it because my laptop is not the newest. Well, brightness… no comments. Dark Theme needed to install qt5ct, qt.. plug in, adding variables sessions restarting, trying, changing systemm config then qt5 config and so f***ing on!
CAN’T drag and drop from downlod to video!
CANT have download and video in up left panel with home and trash!
WTF!?!
NB Lubuntu 20.04.1
And no night mode, no blue filter, no NOTHING!
I love Lubuntu, I work on this distro and I find it very simple and productive. I needed a little more ram memory and this solved my problems
For me it works very well! Just installed Lubuntu 20.10 64bit on Asus T100 tablet.
Only complaint would be during installation it asked for manual partitioning and somewhat complicated mount points and tags – this would confuse a non-tech person easily too much to cancel installation.
Imo this review should be redone.
Hello, I\’ve been using it for a few months now and its been pretty OK, really. I miss the swallow icons and it seems a bit less stable than 18.04 (TBH it is a bit crashy but I think that\’s cos my machine has quite limited memory for today\’s apps, 2Gb) but as long as you don\’t run too many progs in a Teams meeting, its abso fine.
Just adding to my comment. I read your article again and, although you are critical, I learnt quite a lot about Lubuntu which was very useful and interesting. I had not noticed the issues you mentioned myself since I just don\’t use those programs. I like the file manager \’Open in Terminal\’ thing which I had not used before and qps looks quite good actually – I didn\’t have a massive problem with it when I tested it just now. I don\’t get the doubling of the battery icon which I used to have in 18.04. The right-click and upload to a remote server is useful to know about but I just don\’t have a problem with the other features you found fault with. It seems like I was caught by an installation issue because I only had 2 Gb RAM and by default Lubuntu does not install any swap space. That was responsible for the crashing I mentioned above, which I think has been sorted thanks to help from the ubuntu forum.
Where were you last week? I coulda saved some time had I read this earlier.
We build systems that had been previously based on Lubuntu 16.04. We don’t need much from the desktop, just a few things really. Those are absent in Lubuntu 20.04.
There is also the overall impression of shoddiness in the Apps that are there (as you pointed out). Also, I had a hell of a time finding the places to do basic things. I ended up using Bash to connect to wireless because it was faster than searching for the tool in Lubuntu. I wish I could put the old LXDE Lubuntu on 20.04. 🙁
Had similar experience coming from Lubuntu 18.04 with Lubuntu 20.04. I went to Debian 10 minimal install debian-netinst.iso and installed the desktop with apt install lxde-core.
Works flawlessly, takes less resources than Lubuntu 18.04 LTS and seems to be a little snappier. Hope this helps
I have to agree that I am very disapointed in Lubuntu 20.04. I have been a fan of Lubuntu for years, but it is not improving. I don’t want flash features – I want a lightweight, efficient and reliable distribution, that does not load a bunch of packages that I don’t need. I discover that since 20.04, Lubuntu is no longer usable on my oldest Raspberry Pi’s (I still have some model 2s), because of resource utilisation.
I have had so many problems installing almost everything I need using 20.04. I don’t think a single program has installed without spending at least a couple of hours googling to fix the bugs.
I tried it myself and found it one of he least appealing Linux desktops I have used in awhile. I almost feel like the Linux community as a whole needs to stop with the fragmentation and try and decide on much fewer platforms to support. Too many spins on the same old formula. It’s hurt the great good of open source by having all these splintered desktops and forks of those desktops. Mass confusion and to be frank none of them are really very good. All the distro’s have issues. I finally gave up and went back to Windows 10, simply because I know what it is and I don’t have to jump around from one distro to another trying to find a good version. Its basically a fruitless endeavor and accepting that Linux desktops are not that good is definitely a wake up call for me. Yeah Windows isn’t perfect but I have one development source that is working to try and provide that. There is something to be said for a solid tree of development.
Been using Lubuntu for years. When the “upgrade to new LTS” popped up, I figured, why not, always been seamless before. It was like a different distro completely. Bloated, trying too hard to be some kind of mobile app with a million dialogue boxes that try incessantly to prevent you from doing things the way they have been done in every prior version. When the current LTS stops being supported, I’ll be switching 100%. Such a shame how a great distro can go to trash so fast.
Thank for this honest review because those were my findings as well as a long time Lubuntu fan! I was literally pulling my hair out recently over all the bugs in this release. And it is sad too because Lubuntu used to be my go-to distro and I would literally recommend it to everyone, but no more. I was first introduced to Lubuntu around a decade ago in college and it was simply marvelous at the time. With it housed within a VM, I could run my entire computer engineering development environment at blazing speed on a mere Atom-powered tablet PC with only 4GB of RAM. Even as recent as a few years ago, I had used 18.04 for RetroPie arcade machines and it was exceptionally good without any bugs or hang-ups.
However, things took a turn for a worse and, just within the last two weeks, I made the move to install 20.04 and I have to say it was the biggest mistake in my life in selecting a Linux distribution and, oh, how the mighty have fallen. The whole GUI is so boogered up that when I select reboot, even though I have the lock screen disabled in the settings it will go to the lockscreen in lieu of rebooting. All in all, I have since moved on to Mint which many times faster in exchange for a slight increase in memory usage (see here: https://www.ubuntupit.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/System-Requirements-Linux-Mint-vs-Ubuntu.jpg) that is still far less than mainline Ubuntu. I strongly agree with the author’s findings here. If you are on an older machine, either stick with Lubuntu 18.04 LTS or level up to Mint and ditch these idiots.
Thanks to Lubuntu 20.04 I can use without driver issues my old netbook equipped with an atom z8385f.
With previous LTS version was a nightmare : no audio, WiFi and touchpad available.
Downloading Lubuntu 20.04 now gives you 19.10 instead. WTF?
Jeez, I hope that’s not what the future holds. I dread the thought of migrating to another distro. Tried it several times before and have always come back to Lubuntu. I’m sticking with 18.04 (rock solid) until the time comes when I have no other option.
I’m on 20.04.2 now and it’s much better than the previous 20.x versions. It’s seems quite usable.
I have used Lubuntu for years and love its fast, minimalist interface. However Lubuntu 20.04 is the worst version I have used. I am constantly frustrated by stuff that just does not work – many features accessible from the UI just don’t do anything ! I hate to move away from Lubuntu, because of the effort that system setup entails, but I think it is worth it to get a system that is basically functional. There is a market niche for an efficient OS that puts functionality ahead of fancy looks. That niche was filled by Lubuntu. What replaces it ?
Check this list: https://fosspost.org/lightweight-linux-distributions/
You can easily customise it and make it look good. Ive upgraded to 20.04 now, dont see much difference.
i didnt have any problems either other than some minor bugs. I hope theyll fix them though.
From Mess to Bless…
Being fed up with all the bugs, bluescreens, viruses and the approach of windows to tell me what hardware I should buy, what apps I need to install and even bothering me with Cortana and the weather (I just look through the real window for that), I installed Lubuntu 20.04 on all our Notebooks. One of them, my personal one, is equipped with an AMD E2-9000e CPU providing sufficient power for the task.
While I can agree on all your findings, even considering some of them odd, I only consider them minor usability, or optical issues.
Personally I like the clean look and the absence of unnecessary gadgets bloating the system and emptying the battery.
Lubuntu 20.04 is in my opinion a very stable, and reliable OS, which wasn’t always the case for the former installed Mint distributions, that sometimes crashed.
While Lubuntu may not be the choice for many of the almost fastidious Linux users, in my opinion it still offers a good choice for everyday computing on cheap hardware.
But hey, everybody is free to choose and maybe my next computer will have Mint xfce installed… who knows.
Thank you for your review and the time, you put into this niche distro. Your review on the money. I agree with critical comments.
Written on lubuntu 20.04.1 on Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1535M v5 @ 2.90GHz
Yes performance counts and I will keep it 🙂 BUT:
Everybody else should stay away and use anything else for now. Only If you have a lot of time at your hands, and are willing to sacrifice convenience for speed.
I am still using it, accepted, that it is a lot not as convenient, as in refined and widely tested DE’s. One, because it overall still feels snappier than any other. And it still needs a bit less resources than the others.
But you have to weight effort and result.
A casual user won’t get this handled. If this is your first distro in 2021, it will give Linux a bad name for you forever ;-).
For me, it feels like Slackware 20 years ago, everything you do can be “dangerous”, resulting in not to be able to see your screen, for example when you play too much with compton for fanciness and log out / in again. And yes, you can get around a lot of things, but it feels awkward. Yes, you can drag and drop, but convenience is something else. pcman-qt needs some help. Seriously, I could install other things, but I will stick to it. Because i choose to.
Not everybody wants a second user with root rights. I did, for some peace of mind. But then you have to replace the policy-agent, because the lxqt default one cannot handle more than one user in root group :-(.
While they devs maybe had to do something new and tried very hard, and two dev teams learned to work together, the whole thing lacks polishing IMHO.
Maybe Ubuntu pushed them or they felt behind otherwise. I think they knew, but had to release anyway.
I can handle it, but only barely, because I always loved fast desktops environments and have years of Gentoo and others under the belt, LXDE was one of the fastest solutions for me, besides making your own X work.
Very good review, thanks.
Here’s another problem:
Preferences-> Apply Full Upgrade – This installs all kinds of additional software.
For an opensource OS, to take control away from users over what software is installed, is insane.
Thank you for an honest evaluation. I downloaded and installed Lubuntu 20.04 and kept thinking, that I am doing something wrong all the time, because the system did not behave nicely at all (at least not in my older laptop). I should have read your newsletter before installing.
Well…Lots of things missing when coming from 18.04 for one used to productivity shortcuts and more (installed it ~3 days ago), and I was very dissatisfied and was thinking about erasing and reinstalling 18.04, or erasing and just expanding the partition of my old 18.04…
Then I started looking for and implementing solutions for all those little things that actually make all the difference for one used to working fast(er) with them, and now I find that besides being beautifully well polished, the system is pretty nice…
Here are the issues I’ve had & their solutions:
– Switching windows accross workspaces _(very, very annoying and confusing, very very unproductive)_ :: changed it in openbox config (see [1] below)- Alt+F2 to run the cmd windows :: It’s now Win+R in 20.04/LxQt (see [2])- Tiling windows :: Set it up to Ctrl+Win+Arrow key (see [3])- … and other items I can’t think of right now…
So, one has to be a developer, a sys admin of very comfortable with linux/ubuntu system configuration to adjust and adjust to 20.04 coming from 18.04… being that lubuntu is a niche OS speaking -I think to people looking for something lightweight, fast, efficient and productivity friendly, I believe the team should have communicated better and more obviousle on the UIX changes from 18.04 to 20.04, proposing solutions like the ones listed above…
That being said, I’m a Lover of the distribution since the 1st time I saw the system running cold under 400MB of memory consumption, and after ~2 days of frustration, I’m back to being a faithful Lover & User of Lubuntu…___refs:[1] https://askubuntu.com/questions/1248512/lubuntu20-04-how-to-make-alt-tab-cycle-through-only-current-workspaces-windows%5B2%5D https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/lubuntu-meta/+bug/1865853%5B3%5D https://askubuntu.com/questions/1182097/lubuntu-19-10-20-04-how-to-tile-windows-the-window-tiling-section-is-missing
You are spend 80% of this article about how it looks, but do you now why lubuntu was created??? This is not a ‘super duper shiny hiper fast’ version of linux for generation 10 or higher processors with 100 GB RAM. Nothing is for free. If you want something fast on 2nd gen processors with 2 GB of RAM, well… On old computers priorities are little bit different mate than be a ‘super duper shiny’. More important how many space be taken by system after installation, how fast will be booting, how many memory this system using. Trust me, the design of the icons are last thing, where I’m looking for a fast linux distribution.
I agree. Long time user of lubuntu, but 20.04 is very bad. Now i will try Mint xfce.
The Lubuntu 20.04 is really a nightmare. I have installed it on my refurbished laptop which was upgraded recently with new SSD drive 500 GB and also 8 GB DDR3 RAM upgrade and I was shocked when I couldn’t even change the input keyboard method using the keyboard shortcut! I will replace it with some other linux distro