A blog review of KDE 4.2 successfully running on an EeePC

[Foster Grant]

http://adymo.blogspot.com/2009/02/kde-42-on-eeepc-mini-review.html

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_3ko4tktb2PQ/SZtDa5oojpI/AAAAAAAAA7s/wydb5cvOugk/s400/IMG_2515.JPG

Despite hardware that Microsoft recommends XP for over Vista (and, notably, on a computer with only 1GB of memory) he gets KDE 4.2 running easily.

Also interesting:

... (T)he whole KDE desktop + Konsole application takes only 280 Megabytes RAM! I think this is outstanding result for a modern desktop released in 2009.

Even if you think 280M is too much, there's something you can do. Kubuntu has four autostarted programs written in Python - the printer applet, update notifier, bluetooth daemon and guidance (the power saver application). Those take roughly 95M in RAM. You can use the KPowerSave from KDE3, turn off update notifications and save more memory. If you do that, then the most recent Linux operating system with KDE 4.2 desktop will take exactly as much RAM as 7 year old Windows XP - roughly 180-200M.

I wouldn't put it on a really old computer (like my mom's, which is 2002-vintage and is maxxed out at 512MiB of RAM), but if you can run it on a one-gig EeePC, some of those arguments about KDE 4 using too much memory become moot.

[phaed]

Nice, but the truly startling realization for me is that a $250 netbook has the RAM and computational capacity of a high end computer from 5-7 years ago.

I look forward to seeing computing technology in another 5-7 years. $200 netbooks with quad core processors and 8 GB of RAM?

[Grant A.]

1 gig of RAM is a lot of memory. KDE 4.2 runs fine on my old lappy with a Centrino Processor, Intel i810 graphics card, and 512 RAM.

[vishzilla]

KDE 4.2 runs nicely on my 2005 computer w/ 512 MB RAM.. Startup uses about 220-230MB of RAM. And I'm using KDEmod

[smartboyathome]

At first I thought it was Windows Vista on the EEE, despite what I read. :P

I keep wanting to try KDE 4.2, but the only thing keeping me back is the fact that I am happy with my setup that I have now.

[SonnHalter]

Holy crap! pretty good for that comp. never really looked into its specs tho.

[Foster Grant]

Holy crap! pretty good for that comp. never really looked into its specs tho.

I like the EeePC, but I'm 6 feet tall and athletic with glove-size-XL hands. The keyboard is too small for me to use comfortably. Oh, well.

Too bad, too. One of those with Easy Peasy (http://www.geteasypeasy.com/) (formerly Ubuntu Eee) would cover everything I do but multimedia (video and audio) and games, and I could build a desktop dual-boot PC for that stuff and use the EeePC for everything else. Not to be, I guess.