The Verdict
Lightweight desktops
Taking app launch times as an indication, all the options in this Roundup are equally lightweight and responsive, and don’t give us much to choose between in terms of performance. So instead we’ll concentrate on their other aspects and determine our winner using the tried-and-tested mechanism of elimination.
Lumina loses out for the simple reason that it wasn’t designed for Linux. It also isn’t available in the repos of many distributions, which makes installation a tall order for most users.
We are really pained to deny Equinox a podium finish, especially since it performs extremely well and doesn’t score too badly in terms of usability. However, the project isn’t as actively developed as its peers, and you can’t always find it in your favourite disto.
Moksha gets on the podium for its beautiful Enlightenment pedigree. It not only looks good but is very responsive and light on resources. As with most desktops designed for a specific distribution, though, Moksha doesn’t always sit pretty across other distributions.
Both LXQT and Openbox are mature projects and have been around for several years now. Openbox is surely the faster of the two, but what prevents it from claiming victory is its weak usability. Since it’s a bare-bones window manager, users will have to spend some time assembling various components and writing a custom configuration file to create a usable desktop environment. While that doesn’t take as much effort as it sounds, it’s still an exercise and takes longer than a ready-made solution like LXQT.
LXQT is the result of the merger of the LXDE and Razor-qt desktops. It boots very quickly and makes judicious use of available resources. Despite consuming a fraction of the resources of its mainstream rivals, LXQT looks good thanks to its Qt underpinnings, which are also the reason for its slightly higher resource use when compared to Openbox.
That said, LXQT will feel at home on a modern machine, but is still light enough to push an out-of-commission computer back into active duty.