Four days into Ubuntu and I've switched to Xubuntu

Following advice given to me on the Ubuntu forums, and given that the Ubuntu installation was pretty much a 'fresh' installation (ie, the tinkering I have done shouldn't have changed much, if anything, 'under the bonnet'), I've decided to switch from Ubuntu to Xubuntu. Apparently I should see a noticeable increase in the speed at which the system runs by using XFCE instead of Gnome.

I've not used Xubuntu for any great amount of time before, chiefly due to my other computers having plenty of grunt and hence being able to cope perfectly well with Ubuntu. There's also the small matter that I've never been able to get a Xubuntu Live CD to work on this machine, for reasons unknown. Ubuntu Live CDs, on the other hand, have always worked just fine.

So how did I get from Ubuntu to Xubuntu on this machine? Well, there's a very good website of Ubuntu resources here, and amidst these resources are instructions on how to go from a Ubuntu install to a 'pure' installation of Xubuntu or Kubuntu (Ubuntu using KDE instead of Gnome). Copying and pasting the given command into a terminal window, the change was set in action. After entering the sudo password I headed into town to do a little bit of shopping in the new-year sales, while the computer removed the packages for Ubuntu and installed those for Xubuntu. When I returned home a little over an hour later the operation hadn't completed because the terminal wanted the sudo password again, but after I entered that it didn't take too much longer for the operation to complete. The Ubuntu screen looked a little different to how it did before the changes started, and after a reboot I was into the Xubuntu environment with an entirely different desktop theme and, I'm sure, things happening differently (more efficiently, I hope!) in the background.

My fresh Xubuntu install, with GIMP (the Print Screen key doesn't seem to do anything in Xubuntu, so I had to use GIMP to take this screenshot) and Firefox (for writing this blog entry!) both minimised to the bottom panel.

The next step for me will be to work out how many of the changes to Ubuntu I documented previously in this blog have been held over into my Xubuntu installation and how many I'll want to reperform. Already I can see that the cosmetic changes I made (installing Microsoft Core Fonts, resizing desktop fonts, and fiddling with the icons on the panel at the top of the screen) haven't carried through, but all of the changes I made to Firefox have been preserved. But this investigation will be the subject of a new post, I think.

PS From this post forwards, this blog will contain links to relevant sites. I thought it would be more useful that way!
PPS This post means that the name of this blog has changed from 'Matthew's Ubuntu Blog' to 'Matthew's Xubuntu Blog'. Stands to reason, doesn't it!