Fedora’s XFCE Spin – Lightweight Ditro’s Part 2.
So, as you may have read already for the first time ever I’m really digging in a checking out smaller, more lightweight Linux distributions. This whole experiment was inspired by a friend asking for recommendations on what to do with an older computer, but it has been a fun experiment.
I mentioned in the previous post a few of the distributions I have already tried. Most of these distributions were created from the ground up to run optimally on lower-end or older hardware. Today, I am going to look at the Fedora XFCE Spin. The Fedora XFCE spin is just what it sounds like – Fedora, with XFCE, which in turn has lower system requirements than GNOME or KDE, enabling Fedora to run on less hardware than the default “spins”, however as I’ve learned, XFCE doesn’t have to just be for old or low end hardware, it can be a viable desktop for anyone on any hardware, and I never realized until now just now pleasant it can be to work with.
The Fedora XFCE spin is available as an installable LiveCD. To install, simply download the torrent, burn the .iso to CD and but up the target computer with the CD. There are both i686 (x86-32) and PowerPC 64-bit versions of the distribution, so either a PC would be a good target machine or even an older pre-intel Mac would be a great machine to try out Fedora XFCE on – especially since Apple has now official dropped PowerPC from Snow Leopard – get an awesome free up-to-date and quite speedy Operating System for your older Mac!
The Fedora XFCE desktop is set-up nicely in a single panel design with a single bottom panel. I’ve often found a single, bottom panel – no matter what desktop environment – is easier for a new Linux user coming from Windows to adjust too. Also the artwork is very nice, and the distribution looks very professional.
Looking around the distro, there is an excellent package set installed – including smaller, more lightweight applications such as AbiWord and GNUmeric Spreadsheet in place of OpenOffice.org. Although Firefox is installed, Midori is also installed (along with Firefox). Midori is part of XFCE’s “goodies” package but is an awesome, lightweight web-kit based web-browser. There is easily an appropriate application pre-installed for practically any use an average user would need. The only exception, unlike Ubuntu and many other distributions, Fedora doesn’t include any non-free bit by default, however it’s very simple to set up the RPM Fusion repository, and also be sure to check out Mauriat Miranda’s excellent Fedora Installation Gude which will guide you the rest of the way through getting anything you would ever need.
Lately, I’ve become a real fan of Fedora, and the XFCE spin is no exception. If you’ve grown tired of Xubuntu and want a more lightweight XFCE implementation built upon a solid, innovative Linux distribution, please check out the Fedora XFCE spin – I do not think you will be disappointed.

Written by jaysonrowe on January 23rd, 2010 with no comments.
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