On Jan 14, 2008 9:23 PM, Oren Beck orenbeck@gmail.com wrote:
On Jan 14, 2008 5:50 PM, Arthur Pemberton pemboa@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/14/08, Julie betelgeuse67stang@yahoo.com wrote:
Here's a look if you haven't already seen it:
As a reminder the KDE 4 look is far from complete.
-- Fedora 7 : sipping some of that moonshine ( www.pembo13.com ) _
The "Look and Feel" factors have come to overshadow all else. Often in some cases literally pushing system resource demands way out of proportion. Anyone care to name their bloatware examples? I will state that the window managers of light footprint tend to have an amusing fraction of resource usage compared to KDE or others.
All reports are that KDE4 is lighter than KDE3. I wouldn't consider KDE bloatware myself, but I guess that is subjective.
On Monday 14 January 2008, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
The "Look and Feel" factors have come to overshadow all else. Often in some cases literally pushing system resource demands way out of proportion. Anyone care to name their bloatware examples? I will state that the window managers of light footprint tend to have an amusing fraction of resource usage compared to KDE or others.
All reports are that KDE4 is lighter than KDE3. I wouldn't consider KDE bloatware myself, but I guess that is subjective.
Also try not to compare apples and oranges. :)
That is, if you're comparing *window managers*, compare them to KWin, not to all of KDE. And don't include kdelibs in your comparison unless you're prepared to include the libraries used by Other WM.
Regardless of the comparison, realize that kdelibs and Qt are used by not merely KWin, but also all the desktop applications in KDE. Since these are shared objects, in theory, the overall memory consumption should be minimized.
On Jan 15, 2008 1:19 AM, Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
On Monday 14 January 2008, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
The "Look and Feel" factors have come to overshadow all else. Often in some cases literally pushing system resource demands way out of proportion. Anyone care to name their bloatware examples? I will state that the window managers of light footprint tend to have an amusing fraction of resource usage compared to KDE or others.
All reports are that KDE4 is lighter than KDE3. I wouldn't consider KDE bloatware myself, but I guess that is subjective.
Also try not to compare apples and oranges. :)
That is, if you're comparing *window managers*, compare them to KWin, not to all of KDE. And don't include kdelibs in your comparison unless you're prepared to include the libraries used by Other WM.
Regardless of the comparison, realize that kdelibs and Qt are used by not merely KWin, but also all the desktop applications in KDE. Since these are shared objects, in theory, the overall memory consumption should be minimized.
Well said. .... now if only I cold get rid all of all those gtk+ apps.
--- Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
... Also try not to compare apples and oranges. :)
That is, if you're comparing *window managers*, compare them to KWin, not to all of KDE. And don't include kdelibs in your comparison unless you're prepared to include the libraries used by Other WM.
But who would install KWin and not the rest of KDE? I think you have to look at the whole package. KDE4 installs with KDElibs and the rest of the KDE4 pieces. XFCE installs with it's libraries and tools. And by the way XFCE is as lightweight as it used to be. I think Fluxbox may take the crown now, but last time I tried fluxbox all I got was flusterboxed.
I agree with the apples to apples thing but let's not disguise an apple as an orange. ;') When you run a window manager you really are wanting to run the apps that are part of the package the window manager generally comes set up with. Most people don't roll their own desktop anymore. So, it does make true apple-apple comparisons difficult.
That said, KDE 3.5.8 on my machine with nothing much running chunks out 1.5 GB of my 2 GB of RAM. Holy cow! But I may have had an empty OOo running, and firefox. You know we had a name for kids like this growing up. ;')
Brian
On Tuesday 15 January 2008, Jack wrote:
--- Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
... Also try not to compare apples and oranges. :)
That is, if you're comparing *window managers*, compare them to KWin, not to all of KDE. And don't include kdelibs in your comparison unless you're prepared to include the libraries used by Other WM.
But who would install KWin and not the rest of KDE?
Who would install XFCE and not any real applications? Besides, the fact that you're likely to install all of KDE is a *benefit* to having it all share the same libraries.
I think you have to look at the whole package.
Only if you're comparing it to a whole similar "package"-- so if you want to compare it with your XFCE desktop, you MUST INCLUDE ALL APPLICATIONS YOU USE in the comparison.
Luke -Jr wrote:
Only if you're comparing it to a whole similar "package"-- so if you want to compare it with your XFCE desktop, you MUST INCLUDE ALL APPLICATIONS YOU USE in the comparison.
Yes and no. I get your argument, but seriously, KDE and GNOME are both heavy window managers, period. I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
However, the flip side is that it isn't always trivial to enable a feature you want in light weight desktops like fluxbox. If you are setting a system up for a transitional Windows user, you want everything to be pretty and "just work," even if it uses 200% more RAM and loads 3 seconds slower than it otherwise could. My wife (who still fights with me over our 100% Linux house) is relatively happy with KDE and GNOME (we have 1 machine running each), but she would flip if I put something like fluxbox in front of her. She doesn't give a damn that it loads to desktop 15 seconds faster and uses practically no RAM.
~Bradley
On Jan 16, 2008 2:34 PM, Bradley Hook bhook@kssb.net wrote:
Luke -Jr wrote:
Only if you're comparing it to a whole similar "package"-- so if you want to compare it with your XFCE desktop, you MUST INCLUDE ALL APPLICATIONS YOU USE in the comparison.
Yes and no. I get your argument, but seriously, KDE and GNOME are both heavy window managers, period. I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
Shouldn't that be KDE and Gnome both _use_ heavy window managers? or are you saying that KDE and Gnome are window managers? I use fluxbox on my home server, its ok.. nothing exciting though -- just nice and slim, which is what i wanted.
I have found even minimal customizations of Fluxbox to be not worth the effort, so mine is very much in its vanilla state right now. But again, it's more than enough for th purposes I wanted it.
Arthur Pemberton wrote:
Shouldn't that be KDE and Gnome both _use_ heavy window managers? or are you saying that KDE and Gnome are window managers?
Technically, yes. But I guess what I meant to say is that kde and gnome are both heavy "desktop environments". I personally don't know anyone that uses just the window managers of either kde or gnome. With fluxbox, there really isn't anything else to it other than the window manager, so it is an extremely light desktop environment.
But, I would be willing to bet that even the window manager app of either kde or gnome is more of a resource hog than the likes of fluxbox. I still use them regardless.
~Bradley
On Wednesday 16 January 2008, Bradley Hook wrote:
Arthur Pemberton wrote:
Shouldn't that be KDE and Gnome both _use_ heavy window managers? or are you saying that KDE and Gnome are window managers?
Technically, yes. But I guess what I meant to say is that kde and gnome are both heavy "desktop environments". I personally don't know anyone that uses just the window managers of either kde or gnome. With fluxbox, there really isn't anything else to it other than the window manager, so it is an extremely light desktop environment.
Fluxbox is a window manager, not a desktop environment. You can combine Fluxbox with applications to get a desktop environment, but that is very unlikely to be "lighter" than KDE or GNOME.
On Wednesday 16 January 2008, Bradley Hook wrote:
Luke -Jr wrote:
Only if you're comparing it to a whole similar "package"-- so if you want to compare it with your XFCE desktop, you MUST INCLUDE ALL APPLICATIONS YOU USE in the comparison.
Yes and no. I get your argument, but seriously, KDE and GNOME are both heavy window managers, period.
Neither KDE nor GNOME are window managers at all. GNOME doesn't even INCLUDE a window manager, last I checked. And KWin is quite light, in part because it doesn't *need* the features most standalone window managers do.
I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
s/"might"/probably/
However, the flip side is that it isn't always trivial to enable a feature you want in light weight desktops like fluxbox. If you are setting a system up for a transitional Windows user, you want everything to be pretty and "just work," even if it uses 200% more RAM and loads 3 seconds slower than it otherwise could. My wife (who still fights with me over our 100% Linux house) is relatively happy with KDE and GNOME (we have 1 machine running each), but she would flip if I put something like fluxbox in front of her. She doesn't give a damn that it loads to desktop 15 seconds faster and uses practically no RAM.
Who uses the desktop?
Note you can always replace the startkde script with something quicker if you really want to.
Luke -Jr wrote:
Neither KDE nor GNOME are window managers at all. GNOME doesn't even INCLUDE a window manager, last I checked. And KWin is quite light, in part because it doesn't *need* the features most standalone window managers do.
Metacity is a part of the GNOME project, and is the default window manager for a GNOME install. Yes, you can change it, but then you wouldn't be running a "pure" GNOME install.
I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
s/"might"/probably/
Yeah, sure, my wife will "probably" need Subversion modules or the Write Daemon, among other items loaded by default on a KDE install... just like she needed all those little system tray apps that loaded on her old Windows machine?
I happily use KDE and GNOME, so I'm not complaining about either. But anyone who argues that a person running KWin (+ the rest of KDE) is going to have a lower resource usage than a person running Fluxbox (+ all of their apps) is just plain nuts.
~Bradley
On Wednesday 16 January 2008, Bradley Hook wrote:
Luke -Jr wrote:
I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
s/"might"/probably/
Yeah, sure, my wife will "probably" need Subversion modules or the Write Daemon, among other items loaded by default on a KDE install... just like she needed all those little system tray apps that loaded on her old Windows machine?
Nice try. The Subversion module isn't even *included* with a normal KDE install, you need the SDK for it. And the Write Daemon isn't hurting anyone. It should just swap out when not in use.
I happily use KDE and GNOME, so I'm not complaining about either. But anyone who argues that a person running KWin (+ the rest of KDE) is going to have a lower resource usage than a person running Fluxbox (+ all of their apps) is just plain nuts.
Have you tried it?
Luke -Jr wrote:
On Wednesday 16 January 2008, Bradley Hook wrote:
Luke -Jr wrote:
I used to prefer fluxbox, because it really was (is) lighter and faster in practice, even with all of my apps loaded. KDE and GNOME both by default run a bunch of extra stuff that you "might" need, but you usually don't. Granted, it's trivial to turn these things off if you don't want them, but by default your system will run slow(er).
s/"might"/probably/
Yeah, sure, my wife will "probably" need Subversion modules or the Write Daemon, among other items loaded by default on a KDE install... just like she needed all those little system tray apps that loaded on her old Windows machine?
Nice try. The Subversion module isn't even *included* with a normal KDE install, you need the SDK for it. And the Write Daemon isn't hurting anyone. It should just swap out when not in use.
My "normal" KDE install involves sticking in a Slackware 12 disk and using "recommended" options. I never said the write daemon was hurting anyone, just that there was really very little reason to be loading it at startup. And hell, my systems have enough RAM that they simply don't swap at all.
I happily use KDE and GNOME, so I'm not complaining about either. But anyone who argues that a person running KWin (+ the rest of KDE) is going to have a lower resource usage than a person running Fluxbox (+ all of their apps) is just plain nuts.
Have you tried it?
I used Fluxbox as my primary wm for well over a year, quite happily. It was noticeably faster and used less memory than my current KDE install. The main reason I switched off Fluxbox is because, like I've already said, it's hard to sell the "transitional" users on something as slim as Fluxbox. Since I'm trying to "sell" Linux to these transitional users, it's easier for me to stay familiar with the environments like KDE and GNOME if I'm using them myself.
~Bradley
--- Luke -Jr luke@dashjr.org wrote:
I think you have to look at the whole package.
Only if you're comparing it to a whole similar "package"-- so if you want to compare it with your XFCE desktop, you MUST INCLUDE ALL APPLICATIONS YOU USE in the comparison.
Isn't that what "whole package" means. I think we're saying the same thing here. I'm pretty sure that "whole package" and "all applications you use" are two ways of saying the same thing.
Of course things get complicated once you start running KDE applications in XFCE. Furthermore how do compare a KDE desktop that's using Gnome tools with an XFCE desktop running only XFCE applications? This possibilities go on and on, and I'm not sure you can really compare them except in a clean-room type situation. Take Mint for example, it comes configured for gnome, but i install the KDE desktop. What if I were to remove KDE and install an XFCE desktop? Then what do i have? Do I have a clean XFCE? What about the old gnome stuff? Every distro does something a little bit different. The only way to do a real comparison is to install a base linux (say debian with no gui) on several PCs then manually install KDE, gnome, XFCE, and whatever else. It can be done, but it's not as simple as just getting a distro and installing it.
But, I was really commenting on it being useless to just compare the window managers, because that's not where the lion share of "bloat" is. Although, I have to say I'm fairly happy with KDE 3.5.8.
On Mon, January 14, 2008 21:50, Arthur Pemberton wrote:
All reports are that KDE4 is lighter than KDE3. I wouldn't consider KDE bloatware myself, but I guess that is subjective.
It would be hard to compare them at this point, since 4 is so unfinished, but KDE has been working very hard to make it's code more efficient, so they may well come out as the lightest of the vista/leopard/kde4 group.
3.5.7/8 are pretty nice, efficient working environments. They're not xfce minimalists by any means, but they're not Gnome either.
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Arthur Pemberton -
Bradley Hook -
Jack -
Jonathan Hutchins -
Luke -Jr