[GLLUG] Re: Gentoo

[Jeremy Bowers]

On 3/14/06, *Asenchi* < asenchi at gmail.com <mailto:asenchi at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     Well that may be the problem, you are trying to speed up KDE. :)
> 
>     Fluxbox rules.

About three weeks ago I switched to using KDE 3.5 from XFCE. I have been 
very pleased with the speed. It's running on a 1.6GHz Pentium M w/ 1 GB 
ram, for reference, so by modern standards not much of a processor but a 
hefty chunk of RAM for a desktop.

I've tried several times to switch to GNOME or KDE, but I'm a speed 
demon, I'd rather have quick response than a pretty response, and the 
speed of both of them was always too slow. (Of course, I was using them 
on an earlier-generation machine, too, but even so they've been slower.)

Theoretically, with enough RAM, KDE or Gnome should be able to be 
relatively fast because they should share a lot of libraries, whereas 
the typical motley assortment of applications (say, Open Office, 
Mozilla, and Evolution) share very little by comparision. This theory 
seems to be bearing fruit only recently.

And while I can't speak for the latest Gnome, I think KDE's going to 
keep me for a while. The KNotify subsystem is excellent. Konsole finally 
won me over with definable keyboard shortcuts for opening my common SSH 
connections. (It's not obvious how to do it, but it can be done: Create 
a new "session" and save it, then in the (unified!) keyboard shortcut 
selection there will be an option for it.)

On the topic of keyboard shortcuts, everything seems pretty flexible and 
unified on that front, too, much better than I remember it. I'm finally 
using a tabbed terminal emulator because I was able to set the "change 
tab" keys to match the Mozilla ones, which are now in muscle memory.

The menu/selection/whatever-you-call-it bar (the one with the main K 
menu) also can finally be configured to my tastes, getting it small and 
out of the way, while also having actually useful little widgets on it.

It's not perfect, but the integration is finally starting to pay off.

While I don't recall the last version of KDE I really seriously tried, 
it could well be a KDE 2 version. I'm pretty sure I gave KDE3 a shot, 
though. So I wouldn't be surprised to hear that "KDE's had that for 
years!"... though I'm pretty sure you can't say that about its recent 
performance.

It doesn't really seem to abuse the RAM too much, either.

Note: This isn't intended as "advocacy" or flaming; just a report that 
KDE's changed a lot for the better in my experience. I don't cheerlead 
for it. (Philosophically, I'm closed to the GNOME side, but I have to 
admit that I think it's not working as well in practice as I'd like...)