Pros and Cons of Elementary OS - A Brief Distro Review

Elementary OS is one of the top Linux distros on DistroWatch. I have looked at it very briefly a while back but have never completed a review. This is my take on elementary OS and the Pantheon Desktop Environment.

You can download Elementary OS here:

[michadybczak]

Virtual Box is a bad representation of how distro works. In reality elementary OS is very light and fast, suited well for old computers, unless the new LTS somehow changed it. Previous LTS runs great on my 10 year old computer. To be fair, I liked it, but didn't like new version when I was peeking at it in VB...

You need elementary tweak for more options like normal min./max./close buttons and more. The weird thing is, there is no easy way to install it, you need to dig for that information and method that worked well for previous LTS version is not working anymore, which adds to confusion.

[liamdorsey]

they didn't design the epiphany browser, it was made by the gnome team and the elementary OS team customized it

[S-CD]

I actually like it, I installed elementary on my old SSD Thinkpad T61 with 4gb ram, Core2Duo processor and to my surprise I began feeling happy using it. I use only the lower left corner as a hot corner displaying all active windows. And just as you did, I first was discontent that there are no minimize buttons, but I soon discovered that by clicking the app icons in the dock one can toggle maximise minimize of the windows very easy. And after working a couple of hours with a hand full of active windows I realized I was smily face happy with the elementary experience and how it performed on my old laptop! Rendering 3D objects in FreeCAD took forever but that was not elementarys fault, just the old hardware. So my verdict is 5 of 5, elementarys lack of apps after installation is not an issue for me, I rather add the few apps I like than having an abundance of apps I don't use. Thanks for a nice video!

[lokloknik]

DuckDuckGo is absolutely a replacement of any search engine or Google for those who don't know another. I've been using it for a long time without any issues, and it is equally good as any other, Google, Bing or Yahoo. It is like I don't need to use Google at all. And the added value is that your privacy is not at risk.

[julianelson]

Good review:)

This is my distro and right now I'm kind of looking at reviews out of boredom.

The reason that you had problems with it being sluggish is because each distro has to test and configure their system in Virtual box. Elementary is a small team and simply do not have the manpower to do this. The Solus team has the same problem. I've heard that OS runs poorly in Virtualbox for the same reason. I just checked the memory usage and it's running at 632mb. That's not bad. It used to be lighter, though. Those articles on the website are referring to the previous releases of Luna and Freya. I wouldn't recommend Luna because support expires this April, but Freya is supported until 2019.

I use Linux as a consumer OS and Eos is great for that. I like the fact that they don't have a lot of software and utilities installed. I usually use the terminal for that stuff anyway. I don't have to yank a bunch of garbage off and reinstall what I want. Plus, the fewer apps you have the less chance of a bad update wrecking your system.

Now, here are my cons.

I don't like the homebrew apps. I got rid of them all and replaced them with what I usually use. The Email app is completely broken. Gmail refused to open it because it said it was insecure. The only use I had for Epiphany was downloading Chrome. So, I guess it is the exact replacement for Explorer/Edge:)

I also didn't like the fact that PPA's weren't enabled by default.

The file manager is a bit simplistic. Even worse, you cannot replace it with another or it will break the desktop. I think the lack of integration with other file managers is, like Virtualbox, is rooted in the fact that it is a small team.

I hope I was helpful.

[subhadeepjasu]

I have elementary as my only OS in my old laptop, never felt the need to put anything else. I also use it for development stuff. And its definitely not slow. I have used a lot of other popular distros, but this one is just fast. The epiphany browser in fact loads pages a tad bit earlier than firefox but that difference is negligible. The only complaint I had with epiphany was a problem with youtube, where is heats up the machine while playing videos. That is the only reason i downloaded firefox. I really like the curated apps. Some of the non curated apps that are from the Ubuntu repository are broken. I wish that most of the Ubuntu apps in the App Center get replaced by more great elementary apps, and they are making slow and steady progress. And my bluetooth doesn't work as expected. Other than that I love the experience.

[rmcellig]

I run Elementary on an old HP Compaq and it works fine. Very fast and gets the job done whatever I need to do.

[MVRK.VNTHONY]

I'm running elementary OS on a emachine i purchased in 2009. 150Gb HDD, 2gb RAM. AMD. and i have absolutely no reason to buy a new computer. sad hearing that your specs don't work how they should. I'm sure it's something that you overlooked.

[iptoux]

I had tested KDE and GNOME, i feel more warm with Gnome (theme, view), but i hate the file-Manager, on other side i love dolphin (split view) Do you know any good looking GTK3+ file Manager for Gnome with functions like dolphin?

[motorazr]

I am completely agree is a bored and very limited OS, nevertheless its in 6th place on distrowatch, but I also, after watching your video, totally agree with you that Elemetary is not the great things as many people say it is, I do prefer and keep running Linux Mint either with cinnamon or my favorite and installed with KDE. Greetings and good job with your videos.

[dduchesne]

I'm watching this video on elementary OS and its running smooth in 720. I think the problems you are having with speed is due to the VM. This machine I'm using is low end and this OS runs great.

[liamdorsey]

In elementary os to minimize windows without installing the tweak tools and adding the minimize and maximize you click the icon on the dock

[SuperHaunts]

Thank you, a very good review in my estimation. He pointed out some things that I found it well . I tried to elemental set up baby fileserver sort of like a nas to you as a media server and I was surprised how sluggish it was even though it was and older PC that the previous life was used as a camera DVR server .

[HeDoesNotRow]

Apps for media consumption are dark themed, gnome3 does exactly the same thing for totem and image viewer.

[kennethhumphrey]

When you use distro on Virtual box how do you share things with your primary OS?

[saeedbaig]

So it's basically a stripped-down (or watered-down, depending on how you look at it) macOS.

[sysrs]

Is an bug right now that affects chagning images i had this issue on VM on VBOX and on my actual host

[pperry]

Why would anyone, who wants to be taken serious, use Virtual Box? VMWare Player is Free and does pretty much everything Virtual Box can do, but a whole lot faster.

[fredson]

If you want to be a reviewer for anything, go about it the right ways. You must know even as beneficial as VirtualBox might be to use, it slightly differs from a physical computer. Elementary OS is lacking software yes, but it is damn great to look at and use from time to time until it gets better. So far, I am having a great experience trying it out.

[ewhite]

good review man! I tried to install (I am fairly experienced) and I got the error "Radeon Invalid ROM contents". the os freezes and crashes randomly and always when I watch video. thoughts (as far as I know my drivers are up to date)