Need some advice on KDE vs XFCE

[Schlecht]

Hi guys and a Happy New Year!

I've been a Linux user for past 4 years (Suse with KDE3-4). But recently this combination doesn't seem to as fast and stable as before, though I got used to and like a lot KDE applications like Krusader, Akregator and many more.
To make it short, I am not too happy with current Suse and would like to try something different from Suse/Mandriva/Ubuntu. Salix seems to be a good candidate, but I am unsure about the desktop - KDE 4.4.4 as I know it was still quite buggy even in a KDE-oriented distros (though I got used to its applications) and I have seen XFCE just very briefly.
One more issue of KDE4 is a battery lifetime - it seems that my Suse installation eats the battery too quickly, though I do not use any 3D fancy things and compositing is off. So I'd like to ask someone if Salix (KDE or XFCE) would be less energy-hungry.
I have an Asus P50IJ laptop (all-intel) with 2.3GHz dual-core CPU and 4GB of RAM, so I'd like to try a 64bit version of course.

Sorry for a possible offtop.

Thank you.

[SoleSoul]

Hello and welcome!

XFCE is more lightweight than KDE, which means shorter loading times and a more "snappy" system. Surprisingly this doesn't necessarily goes hand by hand with battery time. I don't say XFCE is worse but I'm not sure it's better either.

Can't comment about OpenSUSE vs Salix.

In order to see if you need 64 bit or if you can run it at all we have to know the model of your processor (doesn't matter number of cores).

For example, Core 2 Duo is 64 bit capable while Dual Core is 32 bit only.

EDIT: This would interest you for sure
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... tals&num=1

And some other fixes...

[djemos]

Hi Schlecht. Welcome.
I use salix kde as my main system for everyday use.
Kde 4.4.3 is very stable and fast. I have a Toshiba laptop dual core, 2GB of RAM.
Of course xfce is more lightweight but with the RAM you have in your system will not have any problem.

Also you can find here krusader http://people.salixos.org/djemos/krusader/ to install it.

There are live cd's for both xfce and kde you can use both to test both salix editions.
About suse. It is slow comparing not only with slackware and slackware based distro's but with other distro's as well.

Whatever desktop you will use in salix, will see that it is very stable and fast.

[Schlecht]

SoleSoul
Hi and thank you for your reply!
My CPU is 64bit capable for sure, so there should not be any problem. 4GB of memory is really a lot even for KDE, so it is OK too. So as I said before, I am mostly concerned about the battery life, that is in fact, as you noted, does not correlate with memory usage of the desktop.
I have seen that test on Phoronix, but I would not say it is not 100% accurate since they checked just a couple of popular applications. Moreover, powersaving settings in KDE are extremely granular and flexible and I do not know if those of XFCE can match them.
I have seen a couple of comparisons more:
sorry I am not allowed to post URLs yet
and it seems that KDE for Slack 12.1 is more power efficient than XFCE. So that's why I asked for an advice from the Salix users.
I have several issues with Suse, not too serious, but when you tot all them up - it makes me slightly sick. Maybe it is due to my lack of experience or skills, but I still can't get rid of them and that is it. So I'm just hoping to find something that fits my requirements.

[Schlecht]

djemos
Thank you for the explanations.
Suse (at least in my particular case) obviously has certain issues with its KDE implementation. And since it is considered to be a stable (though maybe not too fast) KDE-based distro, I am kind of uneasy about using KDE at all. Actually, I had a brief look at latest Mandriva, Fedora and Kubuntu, but all of them were even more buggy than Suse 11.3 (on my particular laptop of course ). So I returned to Suse, but it is still far from its KDE3 ancestor as far as stability and usability are concerned.
I know I can use Gnome and KDE applications on XFCE, but it means dragging all the Qt and other libraries with them... Probably it's not too bad, I just don't like it being this way .
Live CD is a great thing, but from my experience it doesn't give you a full idea of the real system capabilities. So I think I'll give KDE a shot first, and if there are too many (familiar ) problems with it, I'll try XFCE.
Thank you for your input!

[Schlecht]

Hi again, guys!

Just wanted to share the first impression of Salix KDE.
Unfortunately, there are no wonders in the world, and KDE 4.4.3 is as buggy as in all other distros. Mostly graphics, etc. But it is expected.
But what is not is that any attempt to install Firefox (3.6.13) brought the system to a total freeze. In case of FF from Salix repo - immediately at FF first start with Kwin crash, in case of Slack repo - slightly later, say, when adding some add-ons. Only hard reset helped. In one case X11 could not start after reset.
Moreover, during boot (sorry, did not notice it sooner) there are some error messages that it could not mount linux boot disk, though, as I you can see, system starts and works.
So looks like I'll have to say goodbye... sorry.

P.S. Installed in a basic mode. Just updated everything available through the manager and tried to install FF. No modifications, tweaks or patches.

[gapan]

All this sounds like faulty hardware to me...

[Schlecht]

All this sounds like faulty hardware to me...

Yes, it sounds like... but very likely it is not.
I tried a "full" installation from the same disk with KDE, and FF (Salix repo) was installed and runs without any problems.
BTW, where should I look for boot logs? I have not found any in /var/logs... Probably just my fault.
Thank you.

[gapan]

All this sounds like faulty hardware to me...

Yes, it sounds like... but very likely it is not.

How did you check?

I tried a "full" installation from the same disk with KDE, and FF (Salix repo) was installed and runs without any problems.

So, does it, or doesn't it work?

BTW, where should I look for boot logs? I have not found any in /var/logs... Probably just my fault.
Thank you.

Are you looking for /var/log/messages?

[mandog]

Hi again, guys!

Just wanted to share the first impression of Salix KDE.
Unfortunately, there are no wonders in the world, and KDE 4.4.3 is as buggy as in all other distros. Mostly graphics, etc. But it is expected.
But what is not is that any attempt to install Firefox (3.6.13) brought the system to a total freeze. In case of FF from Salix repo - immediately at FF first start with Kwin crash, in case of Slack repo - slightly later, say, when adding some add-ons. Only hard reset helped. In one case X11 could not start after reset.
Moreover, during boot (sorry, did not notice it sooner) there are some error messages that it could not mount linux boot disk, though, as I you can see, system starts and works.
So looks like I'll have to say goodbye... sorry.

P.S. Installed in a basic mode. Just updated everything available through the manager and tried to install FF. No modifications, tweaks or patches.

I run KDE and don't have any problems with Firefox freezing or crashing, KDE also seems to be quite stable and I use effects as well I am quite amazed at how Salix has kept ram usage so low under 250 mb with Firefox and desktop effects that is better than most distros achieve with a light desktop.