Power & Memory Usage Of GNOME, KDE, LXDE & Xfce

Okay, I can accept that there are a number of loose variables around the place which the authors of the article also imply, but the results for the system memory usage graph indicate that KDE4.4 takes up about 12Megbytes more than Gnome. I wonder what would happen to those results if you shut down all the default fancy sections in KDE4.4 and then reran that particular test ?

If KDE4 is taking up that extra system memory, does this slow down the processes in KDE4 ?

It also moves me to ask another question: has KDE4 either become or is on the verge of becoming bloatware ? A friend of mine uses Gnome and will not touch KDE because he believes it is now too slow to bother with. Of course, this is a matter of individual perception, but he originally used the KDE3 series and has tried the KDE4 series over a number of years, so I tend to accept his analysis.

Memory usage and performance are not necessarily related. What does it use the extra memory for? In some cases, more memory in use might mean it uses a caching system to boost perceived performance.

It all boils down to how it feels to an individual user, and at that point it becomes a religious war.

But *sigh* The days of having a fully multitasking OS that used up less than 2MB of RAM.

Quit it "jacog".......you're making me feel positively antique. :-) .

I have an old HP laptop that was a "screamer" in its day.....256Meg of RAM........runs Win98SE beautifully and quite fast, and also Puppy Linux........Now those are "cut down" window managers....they have to be to get any sort of performance.

But I think you are probably right in your summation above. I love using KDE....my friend hates it with a capital "H".......and yet, and yet....... both KDE and Gnome seem to do the same thing, more or less.......so, as you say: you stay with what "makes you comfy".........and so far, the siren calls of Gnome have not won me.........but then, I have yet to experience the shift to KDE4.......

> But *sigh* The days of having a fully multitasking OS that used up less than 2MB of RAM.

2MB? Try 64KB: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OS-9

But yeah, level II worked a lot better, and it could use up to 2MB in the CoCo3.

Quoting:It also moves me to ask another question: has KDE4 either become or is on the verge of becoming bloatware ? A friend of mine uses Gnome and will not touch KDE because he believes it is now too slow to bother with. Of course, this is a matter of individual perception, but he originally used the KDE3 series and has tried the KDE4 series over a number of years, so I tend to accept his analysis.

Also weighing in on this and Larabel's piece is the 'Comparison of X Window System desktop environments' Wikipedia found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_X_Window_System_d... and its referenced 'Desktop memory usage' found at http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmark.html In the former, under the bolded section Default programs packaged, one easily sees how more packages are set on as default for the Gnome and KDE DE's --- and KDE4.x even more than KDE 3.x! --- compared to the more lightweight DE's. So ease-of-use "additions" and the disease of featuritis listed here can most certainly lead devs past "the verge of becoming bloatware"!

Ridcully: The Phoronix Test Suite is open source, GPLv3. So the issue about 'removing fancy services in KDE4' and its effect would probably not be that hard to find out, and I'm pretty sure the people in the Phoronix forum are willing to help you. LXer (just as Phoronix probably) will be happy to publish your results!