XFCE vs KDE

[Moltke]

That KDE looks really nice! [member=2]Jerry[/member] did you install it via apt-get or did you built it by source along with the system? What did you use? kde-standard? kde-full? kde-plasma-desktop? I have a box running with kde-plasma-desktop and it doesn't look like this. What theme is that? By "A quick LL build of KDE" do you mean this has no xfce in it but KDE only? are you using all the desktop effects? did you customize that to your liking? disabled some effects? sorry for asking so many things but I'm really curious as to what someone as experienced as you uses and customizes KDE. I've always found KDE interesting; krunner is such a great feature, if only xfce had something similar  ;D However, I also find it kind of overwhelming and a bit tiresome; You click on an item which opens a new item pointing to a sub-menu which points to another sub-menu so you can just do something as simple as setting a keyboard shortcut... tiresome ... xfce is ready to work in a blink of an eye. I admit I've never used it for too long because of this and it eating my pc's resources, that being said, I got curious after reading a few posts on the web stating the very same thing you said; it doesn't seem to be such a resource hoge anymore, at least for now. They seem to be on the KDE 3 path, which was "lighter too" unlike version 4 which many people complain about. There's a fork of KDE 3 called trinity-desktop. Q4OS, a Debian based distro uses it as its default DE and I tried in a VM in Arch as well as in debian. I also tried Q4OS in a VM too and trinity is very light when compared to KDE 4.

[Teddy]

[quote author=Artim link=topic=6940.msg49926#msg49926 date=1576932245]
How has that happened?  KDE on par with Xfce?!  Not long ago I would have thought it impossible.

The main difference is that KDE has a massive, almost inexhaustible supply of developers, where as XFCE have just a handful. I really like KDE and how close it is to Windows and the level of configuration available. Plasma is really nice too.

Sent from my Mobile phone using Tapatalk
[/quote]

KDE has been my go-to DE for many years. Back in the KDE4 days, it was a bit heavy on RAM usage but still, many levels ahead of GNOME which is a downright pig on RAM usage with not that many features to back it up (at least this used to be true a few years ago). KDE5 (Plasma 5) is mostly at the point now where it can compete with XFCE's RAM usage with the compositors and extra eye candy effects disabled. At idle from a cold boot on OpenSUSE (probably KDE's flagship distro besides KDE Neon) it always was below 1GB of usage and more often than not under 650MB.

XFCE's level of polish really doesn't compare to KDE when you compare default look vs default look. With the right theme, fonts and icons and extra applets on the notification area, XFCE isn't that far off from KDE either (LL theming is spot-on!).

I wonder how LXDE and the Enlightenment Desktop compare to XFCE now in polish/features/RAM usage (and the Moksha Desktop fork from Bohdi Linux which I believe came from E17). Clearly its been a few years since I've hopped distros lol. Guess it's time to experiment again!

[Moltke]

I wonder how LXDE and the Enlightenment Desktop compare to XFCE now in polish/features/RAM usage (and the Moksha Desktop fork from Bohdi Linux which I believe came from E17).

It just so happens that I recently tried these as well as lxqt in antiX running from a usb with persistence enabled and while lxde, enlightenment and lxqt used much less RAM (around 300mb) they don't compare with xfce when it comes to ease of use and customization (at least for me).  I've tried many DEs over the years and always found myself back to xfce, I just feel at home with it. I've also tried a few window managers and find awesome-wm being the best for me.

[Valtam]

[member=7109]Moltke[/member] how I build an OS and get it to such low mb on first boot unfortunately, needs to remain a secret - it's my bread and butter and took literally years to reach a certain point. I haven't disabled any effects yet or done any of my tweaks so I can imagine that we would slip well below 400mb as a final product. The login theme is Sweet SDDM and the desktop theme is just Breeze and Breeze for icons.

[torreydale]

I've avoided KDE because it, Gnome, and Unity all seemed to require more resources.  But if we can get it to be Lite, I'm game.

[Valtam]

It's a space I'm watching closely. With so many developers onboard and it getting lighter by the day, with high configuration, it would be criminal to ignore it.

[MS]

I guess there is no reason to be ideological about XFCE. The point is, to be professional, though.

[minesheep]

Memory usage on manjarolinux on virtualbox in live mode and only htop open.
xfce about 720MB memory used
kde about 710MB memory used
gnome about 1500MB memory used task manger used because I had no idea how to install htop
with mint and kde I got about 700MB memory usage too.
Since I have many gigabytes of ram I care about CPU more.

[Moltke]

[member=7109]Moltke[/member] how I build an OS and get it to such low mb on first boot unfortunately, needs to remain a secret - it's my bread and butter and took literally years to reach a certain point. I haven't disabled any effects yet or done any of my tweaks so I can imagine that we would slip well below 400mb as a final product. The login theme is Sweet SDDM and the desktop theme is just Breeze and Breeze for icons.

Thanks for your answer [member=2]Jerry[/member] and I wasn't asking as much as a secret, sorry if it sounded like I was,  guess I chose the wrong words, also, I just took a closer and better look at that screenshot and noticed the 5.x on the top, I thought this wasn't that serious, my bad, should've known better. By the way, in my VM running KDE, the RAM usage at boot is around the same as yours. Disabling some desktop effects; minimize, maximize, close and open windows effects didn't change that so I guess it doesn't hurt letting them on, I also use breeze; icons and desktop.

[MS]

No need to feel guilty, [member=7109]Moltke[/member]. Jerry should take your question as a remark of recognition. I mean, when in a restaurant, you asked a staff member for a secret of taste to certain dish - meaning, you liked it - and they told you that unfortunately, this is a secret, coming from years of experience, nobody ought to feel offended, right? On the contrary, such question would be a sign that you may come and eat at the place more often.