Bento Ubuntu Remix RC

Bento is an Ubuntu Remix using mainly the lightweight Openbox window manager as a desktop.

It has been developed since 2012 around the Openbox window manager and features a dynamic applications menu via openbox-menu.

This distribution aims at providing all users with a system relying on Ubuntu and using Openbox window manager without sacrificing ease of use. It is a distribution easy to customize as a bento, and is designed to be working out of the box and used as is by the new users, while still being perfectly suitable for the advanced ones who likes to reshape the entire desktop. It is built on Ubuntu 12.04 to ensure a strong and reliable base for everyday computer usage.

The install comes with the programs Abiword and Gnumeric for the office programs, Gthumb to manage your pictures, Midori to surf the Web, Sylpheed for email, bogofilter for a spam filter, Cups, system-config-printer-gnome and other programs for easy printer configuration, Transmission for a torrent client, the multimedia player and collection manager Xnoise, because it is small and powerful. Are also installed some tools for accessibility which are available in the repositories. A more complete list of applications is available at the end of this page.

Click to the images and change for the next with the arrows or by clicking anywhere on the picture:

First screen
When pressing a key on the keyboard within two seconds we get the language selection screen then several choices for booting. If we don’t press a key on the keyboard during the first two seconds we will reach a screen where it will still be possible to choose the langage as well as the install mode, or the «try without installing» option.

Downloads

Édit as of January 16, 2014:

Thanks to replace all links below with the ones you will find here (modification in progress):

https://linuxvillage.org/en/downloads/

Indeed, Nazral (Archlinux user), who has been lending his tyruiop.eu space kindly to host the files for projects I have been leading since a few years, moved to other countries since this month. I wish him a great voyage and wonderful adventures while going forward! I thank him very much for the service offered and for his generosity.

The links pointing to the web-space offered by phillw are still valid! Thanks to him as well.

The bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-56_non-pae-i386-2012.04.3.iso version as it’s name indicates is provided with the current 12.04 version kernel and is fit for computers whose CPU does not provide the PAE instruction. Zram-config is not installed in it. (See bug #1246664)

  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-56_non-pae-i386-2012.04.3.iso
  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-56_non-pae-i386-2012.04.3.md5sum

The bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-57-generic-i386-2012.04.3.iso, uploaded 10 days after the other ISO files presented here, is provided with a kernel not yet in the current repositories. This kernel version comes from update proposed, and brings in a bug correction which prevented zram-config to start the zram module correctly. This zram module is very interesting to have, in order to improve the live memory capacity. (See bug #1246664)

  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-57-generic-i386-2012.04.3.iso
  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.2.0-57-generic-i386-2012.04.3.iso.md5sum

The iso file bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.8-fake-pae-i386-2012.04.3.iso comes with the 3.8.x kernel and the the fake-pae ppa of Bernd Kreuss, which allows starting systems with a pae kernel on some machines having the PAE instruction which however are not detected. (See here for more information https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Lubuntu-fake-PAE). Some Pentium M and Celeron M are affected by this issue. Zram-config is installed in the system.

  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.8-fake-pae-i386-2012.04.3.iso
  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.8-fake-pae-i386-2012.04.3.md5sum

The version bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.11-i386-2012.04.3.iso has the 3.11 kernel. I don’t know what more this kernel brings, besides being obviously bigger in size than the two other ones. It is provided with zram-config installed.

  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.11-i386-2012.04.3.iso
  • bento-ubuntu-remix-RC-linux-3.11-i386-2012.04.3.md5sum

Full list of applications

Office
Abiword
Gnumeric
Evince

Internet
Midori
Sylpheed + Bogofilter

File managers
PCManFM 1.0
Midnight Commander (mc, semi graphical)

Text editor
Mousepad

Webcam
Guvcview

Mail
Sylpheed
Sylpheed-i18n
Bogofilter

Accessories
File-roller (archive manager)
Galculator (calculator)
Xournal (notetaking application + adding annotations to PDF documents)

Graphics
Gthumb (image viewer and organizer)
flphoto (allows the access to pictures on some MPT-PTP digital cameras)
Gpicview (simple images viewer)

French locales
language-pack-fr
language-pack-fr-base
language-pack-gnome-fr
language-pack-gnome-fr-base

Scanner
Simple-scan

Character Map
Gucharmap

Torrent client
Transmission

Multimedia
Xnoise (reading and managing audio and video collections)
Radiotray (radio streams in the systray)
Deadbeef (simple music reader)
Brasero (burn CD/DVD)
Gnome-alsamixer (tune the volume)
Volumeicon-alsa (control of the volume for the systray)

Among which some codecs
libmatroska5
gstreamer0.10-nice
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad
gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse
gstreamer0.10-plugins-base-apps
gstreamer0.10-tools
gstreamer0.10-x

System tools and preferences
Network-manager-gnome (manage Internet connections)
Bleachbit (cleaning the system)
Htop (watch and manage processes)
Sakura (terminal emulator)

Among which applications management
Ubuntu Software Center (Choose and install programs)
Synaptic (Install, uninstall and update all programs all at once)
Gdebi (install an Ubuntu deb package)
Update-notifier (management and reminder for the updates)

Text mode programs
Imagemagick (collection of tools to modify images)
Lftp (command line ftp client)
Openssh (server and client)
Testdisk (restore deleted partition tables)
Sdparm (manipulate SCSI peripherals parameters)
Hdparm (manipulate IDE peripherals parameters)
Foremost (restore deleted files)
Lshw (list hardware components)

Many more programs are available on the Ubuntu repositories. Additionally several more sources from the community have been added, especially to get a recent version of the Libreoffice suite, as well as several other programs already integrated into Bento. You will find more information about the PPA system on the Ubuntu documentation page

Thanks

Thanks to all the people whose work allowed creating this version: the programmers whose work have been used, the artists who created the different parts used for the theme, and thanks to all the testers who brought feedback version after version since 2012.

Disclaimer
Bento Ubuntu Remix is not an official Canonical project. It is delivered to you under the GPL licence except for the system parts which can be under other licences, free or not free as per the GNU GPL licenses such as some firmwares whose distribution is allowed and whose licenses are located under /usr/share/doc/linux-firmware/licenses in the system tree directory. The licenses for the other packages forming the system are under /usr/share/doc in their related directories.

Bento Ubuntu Remix is provided as is without any guarantee: we can’t be held responsible for any breakage in your system or in your hardware. We provide no guarantee

Ubuntu© and Canonical© are Canonical LTD trademarks. For more information: © 2013 Canonical Ltd. Ubuntu and Canonical are registered trademarks of Canonical Ltd.

10 comments

  1. bonjour
    je viens de l’installer sur le netbook de ma fille mais les applications installées ne sont pas celles indiquées : en effet il y a libre office (ça me convient) netsurf (et non midori) pourquoi pas mais on ne peut pas lire de video (you tube par ex) et comme je n’y connais rien, je ne sais pas quoi faire pour améliorer. Je ne veux pas de firefox qui est beaucoup trop lourd.
    comment dois-je procéder ? Merci de votre aide et bonne journée.

  2. Bonjour Sophie,

    Oui c’est normal que les applications soient un peu différente, car l’article ici date pas mal. Pour installer des applications, utilisez les dépôts, en passant au choix par Synaptic, ou par la Logithèque. Vous trouverez cela au choix dans le click droit sur le bureau : au milieu du menu Openbox (Synaptic), ou bien dans les menus : Outils système > Logithèque (ou Outils système > Gestionnaire de paquets Synaptic).

    Pour lire les vidéos sur youtube il vous faudra installer flashplugin-installer, car certaines vidéos sont encore en Flash (alors que beaucoup sont maintenant en HTML5 qui est libre et ne nécessite pas de programme propriétaire lourdingue).

    Pour éviter les navigateurs web lourds et les plugins flash encore plus lourds vous pourriez installer Clipgrab, télécharger vos vidéos, les réencoder avec, au besoin (c’est facile, quand on l’a fait une fois on sait le faire), et les regarder avec mpv (qui est installé par défaut). Je me doute que ça fait quelques trucs à apprendre… Avec l’aide des linuxvillageois ça peut se faire. 🙂

    Je vous invite à vous inscrire sur le forum pour poser plus de questions : http://forum.linuxvillage.org/

    Il y a une section pour les grands débutants, ici:
    http://forum.linuxvillage.org/index.php/board,41.0.html
    “Débutants
    Nouveau sous Linux, ou peu avancé ? C’est le bon endroit pour poser vos questions !”

    Je suis sûre que les autres membres de la communauté Linuxvillage seront ravis de répondre à toutes vos questions ! 🙂

    Si vous rencontrez un problème à l’inscription, vous pouvez me renvoyer un petit message, et je vous inscrirai. (Des fois les protections anti spammeurs sont un peu trop poussées).

  3. Bonjour, elle est maintenue tant qu’il y a des mises à jour disponibles, donc au plus tard jusqu’en 2019. Cependant je conseille de faire la mise à niveau vers la 16.04, et pour faire cela dans de bonnes conditions, de se rendre sur le forum pour les informations utiles.
    Restaurer le splashboot Bento après mise à jour vers Xenial

    de plus la version a été mise à jour en 14.04.5 … http://downloads.linuxvillage.org/?C=M;O=D

  4. Can you advise as to running Bento, on a Centaur Nehemiah 1.ghz cpu, with 512 DDR-4 RAM.(Unable to determine wether this cpu uses PAE,or non-PAE in LINUX.)P.C. is an Accura Embedded Systems ‘PowerBrick’.(Small form factor P.C.-possibly a mini-itx-machine.)Hard-disk was upgraded to 40gb.

  5. Bonjour,
    Je voudrais essayer cette distribution sur un “eeePC 1000ha”

    Quel fichier télécharger parmi ceux disponible ?

    Merci

  6. It seems as though this particular version of the Ubuntu
    operating system is stripped down enough for extremely low spec computers. Bare bones if there is such a thing.

    1. I might be depending what you consider low specs. If it does not fit the needs you might give antiX MX a whirl, (MX-Linux is now the name), or Slitaz, or Damn Small Linux, or even Puppy…

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