.
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 ProLiant BL460c G9 (Gen9) 2x E5-2670V3 12 Core 3.1GHz No Ram or No Drives
$59.98
DELL PEM640 POWEREDGE M640 BLADE SERVER
$539.95
Dell PowerEdge FX2s CTO Blade 4 Slot 2U Chassis 2x 2000W
$399.00
DELL PowerEdge M630 Blade 2x E5-2683v3 2.0GHz =28 Cores 128GB H330 2x10Gb X520
$290.00
HP Proliant BL460C Gen8 Blade Server 2x 8C E5-2690 192GB Ram
$58.43
727021-B21 HP ProLiant BL460c G9(Gen9) E5 10Gb FlexibleLOM CTO Blade Server
$66.00
Dell PowerEdge M640 Barebone Server Blade No Hard Drive Trays
$499.00
Dell PowerEdge FC630 Server Blade Node 2*E5-2697 v4 2.30GHz CPU 256GB RAM NO HDD
$359.99
HP ProLiant BL460c G9(Gen9) 2x 10 CORE E5-2660v3 2.6GHz 128GB RAM No SSD
$222.00
HP ProLiant BL460c Gen9 Blade 2x E5-2697v3 2.6GHz =28 Cores 128GB P246 650FLB
$300.00