From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Jan 25 01:27:05 2009 Return-Path: Delivered-To: FreeBSD-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 786FD106564A for ; Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:27:05 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F321B8FC13 for ; Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:27:04 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from r55.edvax.de (port-92-196-68-197.dynamic.qsc.de [92.196.68.197]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9B45D3CC76; Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:26:55 +0100 (CET) Received: from r55.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r55.edvax.de (8.14.2/8.14.2) with SMTP id n0P1Ql7g001648; Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:26:47 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 02:26:47 +0100 From: Polytropon To: Eduardo Cerejo Message-Id: <20090125022647.6b379fed.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20090123191547.fd43d651.ejcerejo@optonline.net> References: <20090123191547.fd43d651.ejcerejo@optonline.net> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 2.4.7 (GTK+ 2.12.1; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: FreeBSD-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: KDE: What a monster! X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:27:05 -0000 On Fri, 23 Jan 2009 19:15:47 -0500, Eduardo Cerejo wrote: > I just finished installing kde4, and it can barely run on my old p4 machine! > Where has kde gone? Is the developing team trying to beat VISTA? > Pitiful at best! Without wanting to start an endless discussion, I may say that I've recognized the tendency to slow down programs in UNIX world such as it is always described in "Windows" land: As soon as you get a new OS or new programs, everything runs slower than before. In order to keep the "overall usage speed", you need to have more hardware power. I'm running a P4 2GHz for more than 4 years now happily (I think), but when I needed to build a new software installation due to a data fallout in July 2008, I found everything running slower. THIS TO ALL FreeBSD DEVELOPERS: NOT YOUR FAULT! Every release of FreeBSD brought a higher bootup speed to my system, faster system services and better performance. But what about these advantages? They've got eaten up by all the applications installed, their libraries and especially their GUI toolkits. Nearly every Gtk application has been switched from Gtk 1 to Gtk 2, including more disk consuming libs and depencencies, slower program startup and slower reaction. My "favourite" examples are: * Opera, hardly reacting on input while loading a web page (and no, I don't try to use "Flash" stuff) * Gimp, loads very slowly, needs seconds (!) to show the right click menu, needs several seconds to launch printing dialog On the other hand, there are "old" programs that seem to profit from the system's speed gain. That's why I love to use them instead of their "oversized brothers". Such an "oversized brother" is KDE 4. Don't get me wrong, please. On an up-to-date hardware basis, it's surely a joy to use, fast and responsive. But if your system isn't from today, you don't gonna have fun with it. Around me, other users seem to favour Gnome instead of KDE because they are not willing to update their perfectly running hardware with every release of the desktop environment. (Addition: Gnome has better german internationalisation than KDE.) But I'm not sure if Gnome or even XFCE will follow the "tradition" to decrease speed, I'm using neither of them. Decrease speed? In my opinion, the following formula is true: hardware resources ----------------------- = usage speed software requirements And if you add ++ to numerator and denominator of this quotient, you'll see that the result will stay the same. This is my very individual observation: People are doing the same things with their computers over the years, and they keep doing it *at the same speed* as years ago. I always was happy when I could update my FreeBSD system, because things were faster afterwards. Today, things are slower afterwards. This makes me sad... This has lead me to the conclusion not to use KDE, allthough it has really interesting applications. It's not that I need a desktop GUI system, I'm perfectly happy with a functional and fast window manager (i. e. WindowMaker). Sorry for bothering the list with my thoughts, but maybe I'm not alone with this "unmodern" point of view. :-) -- Polytropon >From Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...