Mint LXDE CE OFFICIAL!!!

[McLovin]

Ok, I have decided to start a new thread here, in hopes that I may attract the attention of Clem and Co.
I am making a Mint LXDE (CE), this is now official.

I am going to use this thread to keep ppl updated on my progress, and how things are coming along, and will just upate this post every time i have a news, so consider this the first update.

3-5-09
I am coming along pretty well on LXDE. I just have to figure out a way to contact Clem to ask him if I can have the team test it, (if this become part of the Mint CE family). I almost have an alpha iso ready for the testing team if it gets the green light, the Mint tools are installed, and functioning, and i have created some custom menus and menu entries. I have used the mintConfig-fluxbox, as it is the best suited for the configuration at the moment. 2 items that have been left out, mintDesktop, because it is used to configure Nautilus, and LXDE uses PCManFM as the file manager, and mintMenu, as I have not yet figured out a way to add a python menu to the LXPanel. I have installed the newest LXPanel. I am using slim as the default login manager, and made a custom Mint theme for it, and have the gfxboot, and usersplashes installed and working. I made a custom gtk theme for it, and i have installed the needed tools to customize to look. XCompmanger is installed by default, but not enabled by default. It uses standard x-chat in place of x-chat-gnome, and firefox as the web browser. The mint artwork is installed, and used as default. I am currently looking at a few different media players, as I would like to use something that is easy to use, looks good, and lightweight at the same time, right now I am experimenting with exaile for music, and VLC for video.

3-6-09
Well, i had a serious setback today, my computer completely crashed, i was doing some work around my house, and came a little too close to my computer with the vacuum, and poof, no more system, so it's back to the begining, luckily I now know where, and how to install everything, so I should be able to get back to where i was pretty quickly. I may change the base that I build off of, and use Mint FluxBox and build off of that, as I am using many of the same tools that shane is, but I have not decided if that is the way I am going to go. But I am going to go get back to work now, hopefully this time I can keep the vacuum away.

3-8-09
Well, I have made the first rough iso, and am actually writing this post from it. I have gotten the iso size down to 564 megs. The MintTools are installed, and working. Firefox homepage, and bookmarks, are using the Mint setup, and the custom menu entries are working properly. Default apps include, PCManFM for file browsing, BlueFish for code editing, leafpad for text editing, Firefox 3 for web browsing, X-Chat for irc, Wicd for the network manager, GPicViewer for image previews, LXArchive for file compression, and extraction, windows wireless driver installer, and all media codecs. There is still some work to be done, but I think I am getting close.

3-10-09
Ok, I have discovered that MPlayer does not play video files correctly in LXDE, so I need to change the video player to VLC, or figure out a way to overcome the dependency issues, and I need to get the installer working a little bit smoother, as it currently hangs when installing grub, not all the time, but on a couple of test installs it did, so I have to figure why that happened and correct it. Also I have changed the audio player from Exaile to Rhythmbox, as Rhythmbox uses less dependencies, and is more compatible with MP3 players such as iPod, (the plugins for iPod are built into Rhythmbox) I have also made a new OpenBox theme for the window decorations, and a custom GTK theme for the windows, (LXDE uses GTK themes for the basic widows styles).

3-17-09
Ok, I have sent a very early, and very rough iso to Clem to take a look at, and see what he think, and says. I am still having the issues with the installer not installing Grub correctly, but the installer itself is working fine for installing the iso. I have solved the video player issues. Some default apps have been changed, MPlayer is no longer part of the iso, I have replaced it with Totem, and that has fixed the video, Rhythmbox is still he default audio player, and I have installed XFTerminal as the default terminal, as it is more full featured.

3-22-09
Ok, I have posted a poll to see if there is enough interest in having a Mint LXDE CE, and have posted some screenshots there for people to see what LXDE looks like, so I decided to post them here so you can all see the progress I am making.
This is the what the menu looks like, with the custom menu entries


This is what the file browser looks like


Firefox


And this is what the desktop looks like with XCompmgr running.


To see a larger picture of any of these pics, just click on them.
I will be posting more as work continues and progress is made, so check back often.

[phil]

I am definitely interested and would like to be able to obtain a copy of your install CD for testing.

[Husse]

Contact me and I'll carry it on

[Zwopper]

Very interesting indeed!
Exaile is a good choice, VLC on the other hand brings in a lot of unnecessary QT-libs, maybe mplayer could be used instead?!

[merlwiz79]

VLC doesn't work well as a Firefox plugin.
Some sites it won't play the videos, like quicktime.

[McLovin]

I noticed the VLC dep issues, and for that reason decided to go with MPlayer. I have to write an update to the thread, but I am moving things around in my house right now, I will do it later tonight.

[phil]

I have been wanting to try lxde and considered downloading from lxde.org but was concerned about possible problems since I do not have a computer not in use to try it on. Can I download it from the Ubuntu repos without problems?

Update:

Forgot that I had an old computer that my son gave me. It was an old web and mail server he retired about a year ago. A MSI K7N2 with AthlonXP, nVidia GeForce 6200, and 2G memory.

I installed Felicia and as soon as I could get internet connection I downloaded lxde with Synaptic. Everything went reasonably well. I even updated the files from lxde with Mmint Update. Everything went fine except I havn't figured out how to put things on the Panel like temperature monitors. XFCE applets do not work.

LXDE has one of the most readable desktops I have ever seen, and I need that since my eyes are getting old.

Had a little trouble getting nVidia going. EnvyNG did not work. But the Hardware Drivers installer did work.

Firefox and Open Office loaded extremely fast the first time. and I could play movies with VLC but not Mplayer.

My memory usage including Firefox which I am using now is 207.9K according to the System Monitor but I suppose this does not include disk cache, but TOP indicates 591,424K including buffers and cache. Subtracting the latter leaves 224972K. LXDE claims as low as around 54K????, not what is normal. I will have to check this again with only the desktop running.

It only took me a couple of hours to get where I am now.

[proxima_centauri]

I recently ran into an Ubuntu LXDE flavoured distro called "MoonOS". Reminded me of Mint.
http://www.moonos.co.cc/

EDIT: I do believe it IS based on Mint, there are "moon" tools resembling mint tools, the gnomechat IRC goes straight to the linuxmint channel. Firefox has a moonos google search like Mint.

[distoaddict]

I recently ran into an Ubuntu LXDE flavoured distro called "MoonOS". Reminded me of Mint.
http://www.moonos.co.cc/

EDIT: I do believe it IS based on Mint, there are "moon" tools resembling mint tools, the gnomechat IRC goes straight to the linuxmint channel. Firefox has a moonos google search like Mint.

it certainly is .See this http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... os#p107599

[ufugu]

I would be so excited to see this!

I have an LXDE session (from the Ubuntu repos) installed on my Felicia desktop. LXDE absolutely flies compared to Gnome or XFCE, and is less intimidating and better looking to me than Fluxbox.

I will look forward to whatever you come up with.

[Zwopper]

I tried this distro today, works like a charm!

[KLonsdale]

I am interested in your project, I have a low resource laptop that I am searching for a polished distro. My first choice is mint due to it ease of configuring a wireless internet connection. However my computer will not boot a mint live cd due to memory limitations and / or a pre 2000 bios. I am currently running Open Suse 11.1 with the gnome desktop because they have a dvd image that boots to the installer and worked well for my machine. I wish that mint had this option because it is my favorite distro, I have it installed on two of my other computers.

[SharkyPL]

I think that it'll be possibly the most user-friendly system for slow computers. I hope it will include every minttool and many addons, and I truly hope it will become one of the head CE releases of Mint.
It gives me joy to see such sweet progress on it. I wonder if you make it stable basing on upcoming Ubuntu 9.04. It would be nice to install Linux Mint 7 LXDE on my hardware, would suit me totally well. 266 MHz and 64mb of RAM is not much, not much enough for XFCE, and combining Minty additions to the system and LXDE, and basing on fast 9.04 would produce the best system for low quality hardware.
Keep up the good work, I'm so looking forward to it.

[kelean]

I am looking forward to a mint with LXDE. I have a couple of older computers that a light mint with LXDE would be just the ticket. Any new progress on making it an offical CE?

Please keep up the good work, Kelean.

[MissileCop]

Another here, who would definitely be interested in a Mint LXDE version. I have an older Compaq 5660 desktop, circa 1998, running a 450 Mhz, that such a distro could sit nicely on.

It's just taking up space right now, and I'm sure that I could find some use for it, with the appropriate distro. I looked at some of the other ones mentioned above, but I've had to admit to myself, I'm starting to become partial to Mint. Not yet sure if it's because I'm getting comfortable with it, and it's now what I know (Windows syndrome), or because I just know that it works "out of the box", and works for me. Time will tell, I guess.

[Husse]

I see McLovin has not posted anything yet - this is going to be an official Mint Edition, hopefully with Mint 7 Gloria

[Zwopper]

I see McLovin has not posted anything yet - this is going to be an official Mind Edition, hopefully with Mint 7 Gloria

YAY! Happy day!

[McLovin]

I did not post it as I was not sure if Clem wanted me to announce it yet, but if you are posting it, then I guess it is ok. I am going to start working on things with the new release, and am going to use some of what I have already done, and hopefully, with the new Ubuntu, there will be more tools available to me to work with, and more features that I may be able to add.
As I have stated before, this is going fit in right between XFCE CE, and Fluxbox CE, as it is lighter than XFCE, but more noob/user friendly than Fluxbox.

[SharkyPL]

Try to make it as complete with features as possible. We're all happy of it, keep up the work!

[merlwiz79]

We have a check sheet of all the features that have to work in every release.
It is tested by exploder and clem, if exploder says it's good.
I try to test them as well if I have the time.