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Afshar
Afshar

Posted on • Updated on

Running Lubuntu 21.04

I am a long term user of Ubuntu, 2 years recently and another 2 years about 5 years ago. My laptop is not old but it is not so powerful. It has 8 GB of RAM and an AMD A9 CPU. It’s very slow while running Ubuntu specially when using several tabs of Firefox or Chrome and while running applications like Skype. So I decided to give Lubuntu a try. I had ready a lot about how fast it is while being very similar to Ubuntu.
Now it’s 10 days that I have installed Lubuntu 21.04 on my laptop. Simultaneously, I have added a 120 GB SSD storage to it. It’s very fast now. I cannot say it’s because of Lubuntu or SSD, either of them, it is very fast now. I run VS Code, Browsers and some of database management tools and do React, .Net and Node.js development on daily basis.
With all goodness, I have some problems with Lubuntu which I have listed below. For some of them, I have found some solutions by far, some of them will be solved soon and some of them may need far more knowledge to solve.
First issue was that partitioning during installation did not give me option to determine swap size. Second issue but perhaps one of big issues was that shortcuts changed a lot and pre-installed apps changed a lot. It took a lot to get used to again. Third issue was that I could not find solution to avoid wake on laptop lid open. I spent some time on it but was not successful. Other issues are as follow:

  • Persian Keyboard was easy to install, but finding/defining a shortcut to switch between keyboard layouts was really though. Finally I find a work-around here.
  • Sleep by closing lid causes crash. [SOLVED] by arbitrary changes and updates
  • When using LibreOffice Calc/Writer I encountered several screen mess up in a way that nothing can be read. I forced to window resize several time again. An update on LibreOffice solved the problem magically.
  • A border has appeared on my desktop. It is a thick black one. It is not related to graphic card. Because some applications like Firefox and VS Code can easily toggle full screen and used all my screen.
  • I saw some ACPI Error on startup in first days. It was something related to Graphic card. I did not say the error again.
  • Wifi interface was not recognized in first place, but some hacks solved the problem. Open software sources, open Other Software tab. Check both Canonical Partners options. Finally, in Additional Drivers tab, select Using DKMS source for the Realtek 8821C PCIe Wi-Fi driver from rtl8821ce-dkms (open source).
  • It seems that my webcam is not recognized yet.
  • Cannot format/partition USB disk. All guides are about Ubuntu Disks. I need this option specially because my USB is bootable and now it needs to be partitioned again. [SOLVED] I realized that I should use KDE partition manager. Also I can install gnome-disk which is Ubuntu standard.

Anyway, as far as I can program Nodes.js, React.js and ASP.NET Core, I am happy with it. Specially now that is fast enough (yet!)

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