Any experience with LXLE?

I installed LXLE on a very old computer for someone else, once. This happened a couple of years ago. I tested it a bit and it seemed alright. I didn’t really have any complaints, though I only tested it shortly and the only issue I found was that the weather indicator wasn’t working as it should.

That said, I have general advice on such questions, for everyone:

About ten years ago I was distro hopping like a maniac, trying out anything that I found remotely interesting. I was still very fresh to the Linux world and was just beginning to dive into it.
After all these years and accumulated experience, I have to swallow the red pill:

There is barely any difference between all those operating systems.

What does that mean? How?
The reason is, that most distributions are based on already established ones. Peppermint OS, LXLE, Devuan, and many many many many other distributions, are nice, have their quirks and stuff, but ultimately, they are all based on the same OS: Ubuntu and Debian.
Additionally, all the differences, that always pop into everyone’s eyes are the different WMs and DEs, as a modular part of the distribution, but at the same time are not an essential, unchangable part about that distribution, since you can change whatever DE or WM you are using, any time. Once you also understand that, you will see, that all these different distributions are nothing magic, they are just custom configurated base distributions, with certain goals in mind. Some want a lean and lightweight experience (Peppermint OS), others specialize on something very specific (Ubuntu Studio) and further want to run on old computers (LXLE) and so on.

However, you can accomplish whatever you want, exactly the way you want, if you just take the base distribution yourself and adjust it to your needs. That is precisely the reason, I stopped distro hopping many years ago and decided on Debian. There is no reason for me to use anything other than Debian, because I can make anything out of Debian. I just have to customize it the way I want to. I don’t need a third party involved in customizing the base OS the way I want it + stuff they want, but I don’t.

So conclusively, I just find it useful to really change a distribution, if the distribution is truly different. That is the case with NixOS, for example. This distribution has an entirely different structure than Ubuntu and Debian have. So it would be truly a change to use this distribution, instead of e.g. Debian. On the other side, there wouldn’t be really anything different when switching from Peppermint OS to LXLE, except the desktop environment and logo.

That said, many enjoy the convenience of preconfigured systems having specific goals in mind. I understand that, that is why I am not “against” the idea of distributing the same base OS in different fashions. I just want to clarify, that people see those distributions as extremely separated, while this couldn’t be further from the truth. They are, for the most part, all brothers and sisters. Sometimes even twins and triplets.

These are the reasons, why I think it is fine if you use LXLE, though you shouldn’t break your head about it, thinking what distribution is best, because you can’t really do anything wrong, as long as the base OS is the one you prefer.

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