Good distros to mess with

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I have run KDE4 on Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, Sabayon, and PC-BSD. PC-BSD was by far the fastest of those (because BSD is leaner and faster than Linux) but still (without desktop effects) a definite loss in performance compared to GNOME+Compiz on either Ubuntu or Fedora. Ubuntu and Debian are quite similar to each other. Sabayon I would guess is probably somewhat leaner than Debian.


My initial comment was incredulity that what you claimed could be true.


It seems unlikely that four of the most highly respected Linux distros (and PC-BSD) all failed so epically in packaging KDE that they ruined it to the extent that I saw. More likely as an explanation is just that KDE4 sucks.


Unless you're talking about Firefox/Iceweasel, programs should open more or less instantly. If it's a big app, I can see it taking a second. For reference, in OSX (quite bloated compared to Linux) the only apps I notice loading are OpenOffice and Firefox. Everything else is on once I click the icon. In Fedora or Ubuntu GNOME, it's the same story except OpenOffice loads in probably a second or so, faster than in OSX. Firefox (loaded with tons of add-ons) takes perhaps two or three seconds to actually start, then a bit longer to call up the session manager and restore all my tabs.


All of that should be instantaneous, too fast even to time it happening.

I see it just comes to a different idea of "running nicely." Perhaps I'm too impatient, or too much of a speed junkie... but I don't like being slowed down while I wait for my computer to catch up.

Thanks for the time trick. I'll post my results in a second.



I noticed it was highly dependent on if you were loading saved pages and whatnot. So yeah, probably a hard drive bottleneck.

Comparison of Linux distributions.

Enjoy the link everyone.

time iceweasel
real 0m0.965s
user 0m0.268s
sys 0m0.104s

This is Debian Squeeze running on a dilapidated 1999 iMac. Also, I have about 8 add-ons. I do not regard this machine as having snappy performance- after Debian has been stripped to the bone, it is tolerable, but just barely. Results on Fedora GNOME soon, but I consider GNOME to be on the heavy side as well. It's just less slow than KDE.

Just downloaded the lastest fedora DVD (as opposed to a CD download to 'try Fedora'. Try!? uh...

Now, I wonder if it's capable of doing Network server business, or just is a workstation version.

Fedora-11-i386-DVD

Is this what you got, Orwell? Just curious, if it's worth setting up.

It's either this, Knoppix, or Ubuntu...

I use the 64-bit version, but yes, I use the DVD for Fedora. There's a step at the end of the installer where it will let you do some basic package management- do you want KDE, GNOME, or something else, which specific pieces do you want, do you want the tools for a LAMP server, or a development environment, and so on. So yeah, it has the tools available to be either a server or a workstation. It's nice. I would recommend using some other livecd to set up a nice big piece of free space for Fedora rather than relying on its partitioner to do anything right. Fedora murdered Ubuntu last time I trusted it to partition my hard drive.

Just to let you guys know, I downloaded the latest Intel 2.7.* xorg driver from a ubuntu PPA repository, & enabled UXA in my xorg.conf....it's like my laptop got overclocked on some sort of crack or something!

thanks...appreciate the advice. I've set up Red Hat 9 back in the day, but we let it just reformat an old machine sitting around. As soon as I get my 20-gig Poser directory out, the fun begins. Appreciate it.

Link to the repo please? I had to rely on some clumsy hacks to un-blacklist the broken driver, at the cost of stability. If Intel graphics are back up in Ubuntu, it may actually be worth bringing it back onto my laptop.

Yeah I know, I did the same thing months back & it was gruesome!

https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-x-swat/+archive/x-updates <<< add that repo & after only a sudo apt-get upgrade you'll be on the latest stable intel driver.

BUT, to get it actually working well, you'll have to add UXA to xorg.conf, otherwise I doubt you'll see any improvement.


So far I haven't experienced any problems, but the reason this isn't on the main repos yet is because it's been reported unstable by alot of users, namely X crashes.

@TheKingsRaven: I am currently running KDE4.2.4 on Fedora 11. No desktop effects. It runs decent, I'll concede that. Not as fast as GNOME, but still functional. But why can't I enable desktop effects? If not Compiz, then at least the native kwin effects? My graphics card may not be great, but it handles all the eye-candy Compiz can offer in GNOME without a single hiccup. In KDE, if I turn on desktop effects a simple alt-tab brings my entire system down.

KDE is nice. If it only worked, I would use it. Aside from the lack of desktop effects, there are a few other annoyances (why did the volume buttons on my keyboard suddenly stop working?) but some of them may be Fedora's fault rather than just KDE's. Also, the way it handles multiple desktops just seems to defeat having multiple desktops at all. Perhaps I'm missing a setting somewhere, but the default shouldn't be worthlessness, and KDE virtual desktops have a history of disobeying me.

EDIT: Oh, and Konqueror sucks. There's no way I'll ever budge on that point.