Three LXDE-based distributions: race them face-to-face

I am in a very interesting situation. Some time ago, I promised myself to stay away from LXDE-based distributions. At the same time, I wrote about three of them in the last 6 weeks.

Can I compare them somehow? Probably yes. Let’s do it.

Zorin OS 6 Lite is an LXDE-based distribution with roots in Ubuntu 11.10. Its main task is to help ex-Windows users bridge to the Linux world in terms of desktop outlook.

WattOS R5 is similar to Zorin OS 6 Lite, because it shares all the same platforms: LXDE and Ubuntu 11.10. It is more targeted on the low-end computers than Zorin. As a result, some of the functions in WattOS have less resource-hungry applications. The best example is the browser: Midori versus Chromium. Also, WattOS, from my point of view, has a more complete set of tools for the beginner. A spreadsheet application and graphics editor are not in Zorin, but they are in WattOS.

In contrast to the above mentioned distributions, ROSA Marathon LXDE does not aim at the low-end computers. At least, not that much. That is why ROSA includes heavy-weight tools instead of lightweight ones, like Firefox and LibreOffice. Also, the boot time of ROSA is significantly more than WattOS or Zorin OS Lite. At the same time, ROSA LXDE is a godsend for multilingual users like me: the keyboard layouts switch is available in ROSA right after the boot.

All of these distributions help the users who want to get their system ready for multimedia playback, but neither was able to connect to my remote partition from the file manager, although ROSA LXDE includes very helpful Gigolo tool.

Of course, this is just a quick roundup, not pretending to be a complete comparison.

And what is your favourite LXDE-based Linux distribution? Why?