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View Full Version : Do you notice speed differences in Desktop Environments?



Cyraxzz
August 3rd, 2006, 06:13 AM
I know that this is hardware centered, but since there are no other laptop sub-forums i have to post it here.

23meg
August 3rd, 2006, 07:35 AM
I do notice; I think on most configurations it should be impossible not to. XFCE is the fastest of this bunch without doubt.

byen
August 3rd, 2006, 07:41 AM
I agree with 23meg, of the three, XFCE is the fastest ...but I cannot really say which of the remaining two is faster. I have a decent configuration (P4 1.8 , 768mb ram) and both Gnome and KDE do pretty well on my setup. It would be interesting to see how Gnome and Kde compare.. I am not really sure how big the speed difference is.
But again..for speed..I vote XFCE.

nealklomp
March 14th, 2007, 04:44 PM
yeah, there is no two ways about it, Xfce is much faster than Gnome or KDE.

ahmatti
March 16th, 2007, 04:34 PM
XFCE is the fastest for sure :) I also like the desktop most functional for productive working with data analysis and latex and stuff.

Lord Illidan
March 16th, 2007, 04:39 PM
I doubt that GNOME or KDE can beat XFCE, especially on Zenwalk, for example...On Ubuntu XFCE has been slowed down a bit.

aysiu
March 16th, 2007, 05:58 PM
I know that this is hardware centered, but since there are no other laptop sub-forums i have to post it here.
Since this thread is more of a discussion/opinion thread than a support one, I've moved it to the Cafe.

ComplexNumber
March 16th, 2007, 06:05 PM
on less powerful hardware, speedwise, it tends to be xfce > gnome > kde.
on more powerful hardware, speedwise, it tends to be xfce > gnome = kde.

hoagie
March 16th, 2007, 06:21 PM
I can't really say beacuse i haven't tried them all. Gnome runs pretty fast on my computer. (P4@ 3.0Ghz, 1.25 Gb ram).

karellen
March 16th, 2007, 06:23 PM
I didn't find xfce being faster than gnome, but I'm probably subjective here. gnome seems snappier than kde on my machine....so here am I, a big fan of gnome :D (but not just because of it's responsiveness ; )

Brunellus
March 16th, 2007, 06:26 PM
Yes. In general, lighter setups run faster.

Where hardware capabilities are limited, I limit the scope of my software accordingly. My preferred lightweight setup is Fluxbox with almost no other chrome.

I have also run GNOME with other window managers. Openbox is much more lightweight and delivers better performance than Metacity--I am tempted to return to the GNOME/Openbox combination. Fluxbox does not play well with GNOME--although this may have changed, as the last time I attempted to run Fluxbox as GNOME's default WM was over a year ago.

XFCE is an excellent compromise, but all the pretty graphics can tax hardware as well.

In general: Fast. Pretty. Cheap. Pick two.

Kindred
March 16th, 2007, 06:36 PM
I never run full versions of Gnome and especially not KDE, just way too much stuff in a typical default install of it. Of all three though, perhaps surprisingly, KDE seems easily the fastest of the three on my (decent) machine. I put it down to QT.

roderikk
March 16th, 2007, 07:18 PM
I thought xfce was faster on my laptop then gnome. Never really tried KDE. But I have today installed E17 from this link:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=319336

And I must say it is véry, very, very nice!!! Great innovation going on there. Very easy to set up. Give it 'a spin'...

me1on
March 16th, 2007, 09:07 PM
I haven't tried Xfce much yet, but so far I've found KDE to be noticeably faster than Gnome. Also, according to this (http://ktown.kde.org/~seli/memory/desktop_benchmark.html) memory benchmark test, Gnome uses the most memory, followed by KDE then Xfce. Once KDE4 comes out, KDE might be even more lightweight than Xfce!

Albi
March 16th, 2007, 09:49 PM
To be honest, the speed difference is not very apparent on a decent computer, the only thing is the startup time is shorter.

bonzodog
March 16th, 2007, 10:06 PM
Yes, out of those three, XFCE on the slackware tree based Distros' is definately the fastest. It's slower on Xubuntu than Zenwalk for example.

The fastest Window manager I have come across has to be one of the ultra-light weights - either one of the *box environments (I use Openbox myself) or the *step environments (afterstep, windowmaker, Etoile).

Bloodfen Razormaw
March 16th, 2007, 10:16 PM
XFCE is only faster if you don't run any applications. Even remedial web browsing on XFCE will require a Gecko browser, which will immediately require more resources than an entire KDE desktop or GNOME desktop (without Gecko).

fuscia
March 16th, 2007, 10:20 PM
XFCE is only faster if you don't run any applications. Even remedial web browsing on XFCE will require a Gecko browser, which will immediately require more resources than an entire KDE desktop or GNOME desktop (without Gecko).

huh? i've used both opera and dillo in xfce. i have no idea why you think this, if i indeed understand you correctly.

forcesofhabit
March 16th, 2007, 10:31 PM
XFCE is definitely the fastest, and I'd continue to use it if the panels weren't so ugly.
I know it's more a matter of productivity, but really they're hideous in my opinion.

Bloodfen Razormaw
March 16th, 2007, 10:49 PM
huh? i've used both opera and dillo in xfce. i have no idea why you think this, if i indeed understand you correctly.
Dillo is not sufficient for a modern web browser. Opera will make slow operations like paging more likely since you have to load two toolkits into memory. There is simply no way to get sane web browsing performance without Qt on Unix. You have to use Opera or Konqueror, at which point you will find everything much faster in KDE anyway. If you have enough system resources you can get away with that of course, but by that point it won't matter, since every desktop will be indistinguishable in terms of speed.

bailout
March 17th, 2007, 12:22 AM
Never noticed any real difference tbh.

psychicdragon
March 17th, 2007, 01:36 AM
On my laptop with 256 Mb of ram, KDE and Gnome use up most of it without any apps running. Swapping results if I try to use more than 1 app at a time.