My new laptop has some less powerful specs than my current, and so I want to install Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu. However, everywhere I see, reviews say not to install Xubuntu 16.04 because it is full of bugs. Yet, when I look at the download for Xubuntu 14.04, it says its end of life is in April 2017.
With this in mind, what version of Xubuntu should I install? I just need 2-3 years with a trustworthy, minimal-bug ridden OS.
Thanks!
I don't know where you read that 16.04 is "full of bugs". What I do know though, is that I have been using it since April 23 and apart from that appstreamcli bug that appeared a few days ago and was fixed right away (and of course it was not a Xubuntu related bug) I haven't seen any reason why someone should stay away from it.
If on the other hand, you prefer to use a safer strategy, you can install 14.04, wait until 16.10 is released (October 2016) so that its kernel will also be available to 16.04 as an official hardware enablement upgrade and install 16.04 by that time.
Personally, I prefer installing new releases from scratch instead of upgrading older ones because upgrades do produce bugs sometimes.
If your laptop is low-spec NOW, just imagine how it will be 3 years into the future: even lower-spec (compared to that day's standards).
I always found Lubuntu running better than Xubuntu on low-spec PCs. I have a laptop like 7 years old. I couldn't run the newest Xubuntu in a decent manner on it, but the newest Lubuntu works like a charm on it. Because lxde is simpler, smaller and faster than xfce. I admit it might seem uglier to the user's eye at first glance, but it proves really useful and decent (with some little tweaks).
Just give LXDE a try. It's a beautified Lubuntu.
So so sorry about the typo. I meant LXLE, not LXDE. LXLE is a beautified Lubuntu.
The answer is simple - install 14.04 LTS and if you ever need it, just upgrade to 16.04, by that time it will be bug-free and flawless.
I would opt for using 14.04 for the time being. It's still supported even though it's end of life is April next year. When the time comes for you to switch to the newer LTS version you'll be able to do this relatively easily. So if you're worried about the new version containing bugs, opt for 14.04 and give it a few months for those bugs to be ironed out.
The primary reason for using Xubuntu for me was that it does not assume 3D-accelerated graphics. I had issues running regular Ubuntu in a VM, because Unity did not play nicely with VMs. (This may no longer be the case, but at the time it certainly was.)
For running Ubuntu actually on the hardware though, I honestly can't see any recent machine having any problems at all. If you have a strong reason for needing 99% of processor resources instead of 95%, then OK - but in that case your biggest problem is starting from having a crappy laptop, and squeezing out an extra few percent is not going to make enough difference for you to notice.
