.
Things I liked:
Reasonably fast server brings in 937 Mb iso in 10-15 min.
Universal LiveUSB installer easily makes LiveUSB.
ALL my laptop hardware recognized and drivers provided
....except for internal closed-source wifi.
Easily sets up open-source external wifi.
Xfce desktop neat, intuitive & responsive.
Uses Ubuntu whisker menu and includes a LibreMenu menu editor.
Network mgr working well, given wifi drivers.
FF is 25; LO is 4.2; amd64 kernel is 3.13.
Boots to browser on-line in ~60 sec; shut-down < 5 sec.
GUI makes it easy to disable my touchpad which disrupts typing.
Things I didn't like:
Inefficient choices in initial 937 Mb base configuration.
937 Mb iso doesn't include closed-source ttf-mscorefonts, Broadcom drivers & flash;
....also doesn't include open-source LibreOffice, Geany & tzdata.
Configuring 2 Gb of persistence took a really long time.
LibreOffice took a long time to bring in as well.
*Apt-get needed to install tzdata; ntp updates desktop to local time on reboot.
Mousepad editor poorer than leafpad, much poorer than gedit IMO.
Bug 1: whisker menu editor doesn't save (or properly display) liveUSB favorites;
....Mint 16 doesn't have this problem with favorites panel display
Bug 2: does not recognize closed-source drivers brought in
....nor indicate correct status of devices using closed-source drivers.
LibreMenu requires a wholesale upgrade of gtk+ and python3 infrastructure.
Things I don't understand:
Why screensaver set only to blank screen.
Why Ubuntu Software Center rather than Synaptic.
*Maybe because I didn't understand Ubuntu Software Center usage as root.
HP Workstation Z640 2x Xeon E5-2623V4 32GB Ram Dual 256GB SSD K420 Linux GA
$161.24
Dell Precision 5810 Workstation Xeon E5-1650 6C 3.5GHz 16GB 500GB Win10 K2200
$115.94
Apple MAC Pro A1481 Late 2013 Xeon Quad-Core 3.7GHz 32GB 1TB SSD FirePro D300
$285.00
Intel Xeon E5-2667 V4 SR2P5 (3.2GHZ/8-CORE/25MB/135W) PROCESSOR CPU
$28.99
SR1XP Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 12 Core 30MB 2.5GHz LGA 2011-3 Grade A Processor
$3.96
Genuine Intel Xeon E5-2680V4 2.40Ghz 14-Core 35MB LGA2011 CPU P/N: SR2N7
$14.99
Intel Xeon Gold 6140 SR3AX 2.3GHz 18-Core Processor CPU
$32.79
Intel Xeon E5-2680 V4 2.4GHz 35MB 14-Core Processor SR2N7 *km
$13.99
Intel Xeon E5-2697 v4 2.3GHz 18-Core Processor CPU LGA2011 SR2JV
$49.99
Apple MAC Pro A1481 Late 2013 Xeon Quad-Core 3.7GHz 16GB 1TB SSD FirePro D300
$235.00