KDE 4.1 or GNOME is faster?

[syms]

hello,
im wondering is kde 4.1 or gnome is faster for u. for me gnome is way much more faster, but i think thats just because my video card is very old.

[Syirrus]

hello,
im wondering is kde 4.1 or gnome is faster for u. for me gnome is way much more faster, but i think thats just because my video card is very old.

So far Gnome is faster for me. Especially if I have compiz enable on it. I have a 8800 GTX

[syms]

So far Gnome is faster for me. Especially if I have compiz enable on it. I have a 8800 GTX

thanks. as i see kde4 didnt do what it have to do - make system lighter than kde3.

[Gerontius]

Compiz runs much faster than Kwin with compositing enabled

i'm disappointed because i had very high expectations

[Ataris]

KDE is designed to be similar to Windows, and it shows. Gnome is and is designed to be much faster. (Xfce sucks, just use Gnome.) I don't like KDE much, but I need it for applications that still use it. Unfortunately, KDE 4 was such a different coding than KDE 3 many programs still don't have versions for it, so you end up stuck will all 3. Unless you can't find an alternative, Gnome reigns by far.

[sub2007]

KDE is designed to be similar to Windows, and it shows. Gnome is and is designed to be much faster. (Xfce sucks, just use Gnome.) I don't like KDE much, but I need it for applications that still use it. Unfortunately, KDE 4 was such a different coding than KDE 3 many programs still don't have versions for it, so you end up stuck will all 3. Unless you can't find an alternative, Gnome reigns by far.

I wouldn't say Xfce sucks, far from it! Xfce IMO is a superior desktop environment to GNOME. I guess I like the fact that Xfce is modular and I find it more customisable than GNOME. I also prefer it's built in programs - Xfwm is better than Metacity and Thunar is a far better file manager than Nautilus.

I haven't used KDE 4.1 but when I tried 3.5 I couldn't find a lot of speed difference between KDE and GNOME. In fact if anything I always thought it was faster...

[Ataris]

Sorry, didn't mean to flame here. Realistically I found Gnome to be better than Xfce in almost every way, even in speed. They say Xfce is faster, but I don't really agree. The simplicity is nice, but I like Gnome better.

[tuxxy]

GNOME is much faster than KDE 4 & 3 :)

[Melcar]

KDE4 has a very small memory footprint. Almost as small as XFCE. In time, it should evolve into an extremely good DE, but as of now it lacks some serious functionality as well as not many apps. have been ported over to the new widget set. They need to better optimize the KWIN composition manager as well, because currently Compiz is faster even with minimal effects.

[gjoellee]

I would say GNOME...:guitar:

[nrs]

GNOME is much faster than KDE 4 & 3 :)
tests have repeatedly shown that memory usage and speed are generally equal, as far as the 3.X series is concerned. KDE gets a slight boost with things like redraw, etc. because of Qt.

Qt4 is better than 3 in almost every way, so I'd expect things to be heavily bent towards KDE in the future -- but right now, it's feels about the same.

[Tsen]

I prefer gnome, but Melcar is right, KDE is a much lighter weight environment. Mind you, the low memory footprint doesn't translate to better speed necessarily. Mind you, I still see KDE 4 as a work in progress, and it's hard to judge it at the moment.

[imronak]

Gnome all the way. :D

KDE4 took more time to start than even windows vista :-/

[syms]

Sorry, didn't mean to flame here. Realistically I found Gnome to be better than Xfce in almost every way, even in speed. They say Xfce is faster, but I don't really agree. The simplicity is nice, but I like Gnome better.

well gnome is much better than xfce, but xfce truly is faster. xfce full desktop uses 70 mb ram, gnome's 130 mb ram, also xfce apps like thunar and mousepad for example working like a dream.

[Vegabondsx]

Sorry, didn't mean to flame here. Realistically I found Gnome to be better than Xfce in almost every way, even in speed. They say Xfce is faster, but I don't really agree. The simplicity is nice, but I like Gnome better.

I have seven or so laptops varying in power from Pentium ones to a Pentium 4 to a Mac with a Core Duo.

I've put Linux on almost all my machines, with the exception of one Pentium one and the Macbook Pro (Core Duo.) In my experience, on older laptops Xfce is definitely faster. This is especially true if you have machines that run in the ~450mhz range. If you have a machine that is fairly modern such as a Pentium 4 or newer, you won't likely notice a difference since GNOME runs great on these machines. KDE performance seems to vary. On 650mhz omnibook I originally had Sidux Lite and KDE ran great, but due to the fact my WIFI cards refused to work I switched to Kubuntu and it seems to work ok, but not as snappy as KDE in Sidux or Xfce would. This is likely due to the extra effects that are on by default in Kubuntu compared to Sidux. I haven't tried GNOME on this machine, but I'd guess it'd probably run a bit better unless I enable desktop effects.

I haven't tried KDE4 yet, but in my experience, unless you disable KDE's interface effects GNOME will run a bit faster. If you have a new machine you wouldn't likely be able to tell the difference though. On modern machines GNOME runs a quick as XFCE, although if you have an older machine you'll find XFCE is quicker due to the fact that it uses less RAM. You will especially notice this with more light-weight distros such as KateOS. XFCE is more basic in my opinion, so it can be somewhat of a trade off.

[GS2]

I think KDE4 is a vast improvement on KDE3, it may be a little slow for a few at the moment, but things are moving forward all the time.

I take my hat off to the guys/girls over at KDE for being so brave - and doing an almost complete redesign, and making such a good job of it too. And I hear they are making KDE available to Windows also. :)

I prefer many of the new features, and look forward to 4.1 once past RC stage.

Is it 'faster' than Gnome - well that is relative - and depends on your setup.

The best bit is that we all have a choice of DE, could be alot worse, there could only be one ;)

Incidentally I have XFCE4 running on FreeBSD 7.0 on an old Pentium II HP laptop - runs perfectly

[kuja]

So far Gnome is faster for me. Especially if I have compiz enable on it. I have a 8800 GTX

If you had "desktop effects" switched on in KDE4, you should know that there's actually a problem with the nvidia drivers (especially for geforce8+ cards). That's quite likely where the performance went out the window ...

http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/GPU-Performance

[Syirrus]

If you had "desktop effects" switched on in KDE4, you should know that there's actually a problem with the nvidia drivers (especially for geforce8+ cards). That's quite likely where the performance went out the window ...

http://techbase.kde.org/User:Lemma/GPU-Performance

Thank you, I will look into this further. Are the new nvidia cards better in terms of compiz performance? (lacking the slowness bug)

[Zorael]

KDE is designed to be similar to Windows, and it shows. Gnome is and is designed to be much faster.
Very interesting! Source for this?

I'm sorry, but I call FUD.

Windows 3 gave way to Windows 95 - making a huge level of changes to the UI that Microsoft has never equalled since. It had many new & innovative features: Drag & drop functionality; taskbars, and so on. All of which have since been copied by Linux, of course.

Actually. . . no. All the above existed prior to Microsoft making use of them. NeXTSTeP in particular was a hugely advanced (for the time) GUI, and it predated Win95 significantly - version 1 released in 1989, and the final version in 1995.

Okay, okay, so Microsoft didn't think up the individual features that we think of as the Windows Look-and-Feel. But it still created a Look-and-Feel, and Linux has been trying to imitate that ever since.

To debunk this, one must discuss the concept of convergent evolution (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convergent_evolution). This is where two completely different and independent systems evolve over time to become very similar. It happens all the time in biology. For example, sharks and dolphins. Both are (typically) fish-eating marine organisms of about the same size. Both have dorsal fins, pectoral fins, tail fins, and similar, streamlined shapes.

However, sharks evolved from fish, while dolphins evolved from a land-based quadrupedal mammal of some sort. The reason they have very similar overall appearances is that they both evolved to be as efficient as possible at living within a marine environment. At no stage did pre-dolphins (the relative newcomers) look at sharks and think "Wow, look at those fins. They work really well. I'll try and evolve some myself!"

Similarly, it's perfectly true to look at early Linux desktops and see FVWM and TWM and a lot of other simplistic GUIs. And then look at modern Linux desktops, and see Gnome & KDE with their taskbars and menus and eye-candy. And yes, it's true to say that they're a lot more like Windows than they used to be.

But then, so is Windows: Windows 3.0 had no taskbar that I remember. And the Start menu? What Start menu?

Linux didn't have a desktop anything like modern Windows. Microsoft didn't either. Now they both do. What does this tell us?

It tells us that developers in both camps looked for ways of improving the GUI, and because there are only a limited number of solutions to a problem, they often used very similar methods. Similarity does not in any way prove or imply imitation.

[btdown]

Stick with Gnome...it's much better (all around) than KDE.

[billenbois]

forget about the fanboyism.
the speed of many environements depends on many things and is often subjective.
eg, here kde4.1 is very fast with compositing enabled. i'm quite happy with it. with gnome+compiz, it's fast but after 10min of use it becomes unuseable. The reason? I've an intel 845GM chipset and very little video memory.

Then, KDE4.1 is also very slow with most nvidia cards. Reason: driver bug. On ATI its quite ok, or nv driver (instead of nvidia).

Then again, on fast computers both seems to be as fast. Some gnome stuff feels slower because they're in python or mono instead of C.

Then speed can be about how productive you are in an environment. That's very personal. Using tiled wm and keyboard shortcut you can be very fast. But without knowing all that by heart, you can also be much slower.

I'm personaly using kde 4.1 at the moment, (i didn't like kde3 and 4.0 so much, this one is quite nice).
I do also like gnome, e17, awesome (and others), and xfce.
Since it's all free just try and make your choice.

[Zorael]

Stick with Gnome...it's much better (all around) than KDE.
Opinion. The letter L is much better (all around) than the letter G. Apples rock, oranges suck.

This thread is just made out to become a KDE vs Gnome war. The final conclusion: try them yourself, use what you like, all environments have their own ideals, perks and flaws.

[Rab22]

hello,
im wondering is kde 4.1 or gnome is faster for u. for me gnome is way much more faster, but i think thats just because my video card is very old.

I have found that GNOME is considerably faster for me. I do have to say though, KDE 4.1 is looking really good! I'm hoping it runs better for me soon.

[Shmifty]

I prefer KDE. I have been using KDE 4.1 since it's release and haven't noticed a slowdown (and I have an nvidia card using the nvidia driver)

[koanhead]

I wouldn't say Xfce sucks, far from it! Xfce IMO is a superior desktop environment to GNOME.
I guess I like the fact that Xfce is modular and I find it more customisable than GNOME. I also prefer it's built in programs - Xfwm is better than Metacity and Thunar is a far better file manager than Nautilus.


I've been using Xfce for about 3 years and have enjoyed it except for the panel problems. The damn panel is constantly breaking, consistently over the 4 or 5 machines on which I've run Xubuntu in that time.

Usually this can be fixed by restarting the xfce4-panel but it's a drag, and currently it's broken in a mysterious way that xfce4-panel -r does not fix. So, I give up and I'm going back to Gnome.

I don't dare try to run KDE on my antiquated hardware, but I understand it's very pretty ;)