.
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.
Western Digital 1TB WD Blue SA510 SATA SSD Internal 2.5”/7mm Cased - WDS100T3B0A
$89.99
Western Digital 1TB WD Blue PC Desktop 3.5'' Internal CMR Hard Drive - WD10EARZ
$44.99
SanDisk 1TB Extreme Portable SSD, External Solid State Drive - SDSSDE61-1T00-G25
$109.99
Dell EMC - Intel DC P4510 SSDPE2KX010T8T 1TB U.2 PCIe NVMe 3.1 SSD 008MW
$98.99
2 PACK Seagate ST1000LM035 Mobile HDD 1TB 2.5" SATA III Laptop Hard Drive
$27.49
Patriot P210 128GB 256GB 512GB 1TB 2TB 2.5" SATA 3 6GB/s Internal SSD PC/MAC Lot
$19.99
1 TB SATA 2.5" Laptop hard drive- Used - Mixed RPM- Tested - Mix Brands/Models
$12.00
Samsung - Geek Squad Certified Refurbished 870 EVO 1TB SATA Solid State Drive
$67.99
Apple 1TB Solid State Drive for Apple MacBook Pro
$80.00
1TB/2TB USB 3.0 Flash Drive Thumb U Disk Memory Stick Pen PC Laptop Storage lot
$80.39