A Management Thing

Linux Lite offers various tools for convenient graphical management of the system. It cleanly separates the configuration of the actual operating system and its components from the components of the XFCE desktop. For example, you will find tools for software management, printer configuration, partitioning, and task management.

The Settings menu includes the tools for the desktop configuration. This includes, in particular, the integrated XFCE management interface Settings, which primarily defines the appearance of the desktop environment and specifies how removable drives, input devices, and services are handled (Figure 6).

Figure 6: The XFCE Settings Manager provides tools for managing the XFCE desktop.

The individual options grouped in the Settings tool can be accessed via the Settings menu, so you do not need to go through the tool in many cases. The XFCE desktop offers a perfect balance in terms of configuration options: You cannot drill down to the smallest detail, as you can with KDE, but you can access significantly more options for individual modifications than in newer versions of Gnome.

The Linux Lite Settings menu includes tools for the network configuration, including the ability to customize the firewall graphically without in-depth knowledge of iptables. Install drivers is a graphical tool for addressing hardware with proprietary drivers. The Install drivers tool proves especially useful with recalcitrant WLAN and UMTS cards, and if you need to support laptop graphics chips: The installation of proprietary drivers and firmware files can easily be automated without the need to search the vendor pages and manually load OEM modules.

Conclusions

Linux Lite has an impressively efficient approach and excellent hardware support on older machines. For example, Lite ran very smoothly on laptops that were between five and eight years old, some of which had hardware that is hard to address with Linux.

And thanks to Ubuntu's extensive software repositories, you can customize Linux Lite for virtually any use case. The lean, but by no means boring, XFCE desktop ensures an appealing look and supports efficient work, thanks to good ergonomics. Users migrating from other operating systems, and newcomers who want to avoid a long learning curve, are well served with Linux Lite.