How to make KDE lighter? Or use another DE?

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Using tablet PC with 2 GiB RAM, 1.6 GiB available. Slow 32 GB eMMC, CPU Intel Atom Z3735D, 256 MiB VRAM is dedicated for iGPU.
With running Firefox with 3-4 tabs Leap 15.6 uses 1-2 GB of swap.

I disabled baloo indexing.
I’m going to uninstall Akonadi.

What else I can do?

Use another DE?
Screen rotating works with KDE+Wayland, doesn’t work with KDE+X11.

For me CPU is good enough (x86-64-v2, 4 cores), problem is with RAM shortage + slow swap.

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  • Turn off the desktop effects
  • Set the animation setting to Immediate
    But, the thing will never be fast with this RAM. Neither will any other DE.
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Manipulating the Compositor settings tends to lower CPU / RAM usage.

KDE Settings → Hardware → Display and Monitor → Compositor
(change the various settings)

You can also completely disable it altogether.
(uncheck Enable on Startup)

Alternatively, you can instantly disable it (and toggle it back ON) while the system is running, using the key combination: SHIFT ALT F12 (or if using a specialized keyboard, like on a laptop, use SHIFT fn ALT F12)

4

IceWM? (but it doesn’t support Wayland).

5

Since when is IceWM a DE?

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But what is it? Window Manager?

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LXQt may work but, though IceWM is only a Window Manager, I am using it to run nearly everything quite satisfactorily on a 2007 Dell Latitude with KDE installed and only 2GB RAM. See Adventures with IceWM.

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I’m thinking about LXQt + KWin for wayland.

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I run MicroOS and Hyprland on a HP 11 Stream, 2G of RAM, dual core 32GB eMMC, runs fine and dandy and just use flatpaks…

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I also want to use touch screen on my tablet PC…

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I have Aeon running on a Dell Venue Pro (Touchscreen), it’s a quad core though, still 4GB of RAM a 64GB eMMC on that system… Touchscreen should work in Hyprland…