Changing my window manager

I recently installed Ubuntu on a laptop that's resource challenged. While that could mean a lot of things, let's just say it has 128 MB of RAM and a mobile P3. It's not so bad because it's a small and cute laptop but anyway, I had to do a PXE boot(since it has no CD drive) and Ubuntu is what I happened to install.

After using it for a bit, I realized it'd probably be a good idea to switch it to Xubuntu, the member of the Ubuntu family of GNU/Linux that's made for underpowered machines. I didn't know how to do this so I searched the web a bit and finally went to the #Ubuntu channel on freenode irc.

They said, "sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop" and I said, ok! So I did it. After 196 MB of downloads and some automatic configuration I guessed that Xubuntu was now installed though I couldn't really tell.

I rebooted but I still didn't see the Xubuntu desktop since the window manager wasn't changed automatically. After another visit to #ubuntu, I had the solution.

At the login screen, all that's needed is to select Xfce from the Sessions menu. No configuration files. No command line. Just a couple clicks and this little laptop is running software that suits it quite nicely. If you're in the same boat, maybe this can help you too.