Best Linux Lite Yet

Wow. They heard me! That’s one little benefit of these “small” Linux distros, especially when the lead dev frequents the forums. Once I wrote that Linux Lite was not so light anymore. That might still be true I suppose, but it still runs snappy and nimble on my faithful old Dell Optiplex 7010. And the current version is better than ever!

One of the bestest, most wonderfulest and awesomeful things they’ve done – perhaps after reading Robin’s Rants and Raves (?), was make systemd less of a big honking hungry threat to computer disk space in the new-and-improved Lite Tweaks feature:

Lite Tweaks, explained

Like Linux Mint used to do with it’s Updater, Linux Lite has done by suggesting things that are completely safe, those which should be used with caution, and also categorized by function: Clean, Fix, Performance, Information, Administration. Easy to understand!

Great Choices!

Have a look at that last one: Systemd Log Cleaner. That darn systemd keeps logs which grow quickly and have even caused problems for some users (rarely, but at times) just by their sheer size. Now you can wipe them clean. I do it often, maybe just because I’m still uneasy about systemd even being there. Yet systemd is one of the reasons a lot of distros “just work” as opposed to those which have to have all kindsa work-arounds and substitute software solutions to make them work reliably. So as long as you “have to” have systemd, you may as well keep it somewhat under control. And Linux Lite makes it so you can do it in a few mouse clicks! How freaking cool is that!

Lite Tweaks is one of the big reasons I still refer “newbies” to Linux Lite. As much as I like my SalixOS system (Slackware-based, systemd-free, quick and responsive), it’s hard to get up-to-date software, and sometimes applications lose support way before the same apps are updated in the Slackware repositories. Yeah, you can add the “testing” repository, but I’d be alternately enabling and disabling it according to what software quit working (like the Xfce desktop weather applet) and what might get broken by a late update. It’s like using Debian “Old Stable.” Solid as a rock, but largely unsupported as the rest of the world moves on. Even Slackware gave way to let PulseAudio in because a lot of apps just won’t work without it, and I wonder if they’ll end up doing the same eventually with systemd. Well, I still love my Salix. But this latest Linux Lite is the best yet, and I heartily recommend it!