Hi all,
It’s a general question i have. I’ve tried a pure KDE install on ArchLinux. By ‘pure’ i mean it’s almost exactly as released by KDE developers. But the 4.4 interface seemed to me a bit sluggish i’ll say. Memory usage was about 700MB plus. Archlinux stays with the most updated packages, so I’ll assume that the graphic drivers (intel) were also latest, which means that the problems should not be in areas other than the Desktop Environment itself (I have an intel gma x3100 with 965 chipset, 2GB ram). My Windows 7 works in about 850 MB when idle, and the Desktop is pretty responsive.
It felt sad to see linux being beaten by windows in the desktop responsiveness department (gnome is pretty fast), and decided to take a plunge in openSUSE. I was rewarded handsomly.
So here’s the point. Has KDE been tuned under the hood by openSUSE? If yes, then kudos to SUSE developers!
It seems unlikely that you would have 700MB of memory in use. How did you calculate that?
openSUSE does put it’s own brand on KDE, but I doubt that this has the brought about the improvement you see from Arch
More likely a hardware issue that is solved in SUSE, possibly by the kernel version.
Well, the memory usage i saw from the System Monitor in KDE. Thats why, 700mb is alot from linux standards.
Hmmm…so do you mean to say that newer kernels might be worse than older ones? Shouldn’t it be the other way round? Newer versions have better support for hardware usually.
Well, Arch isn’t the be all to end all…I also have found that Suse’s implementation of KDE 4 is fast…
Not sure why exactly, but I’m not complaining. Don’t let the Arch crowd brainwash you…Arch started out as Linux From Scratch with a custom Package manager. Arch is a hobbyist distro as far as I’m concerned.
openSUSE is the best thing going for KDE in this day and age as they have KDE dev’s…does Arch?..
Generally speaking newer kernels bring better support. But not always.
Memory use is sometimes confusing in Linux. Most of it appears in use when actually it cached.
@joutlan,
I agree with you…Suse’s implementation is fast, thats why i was curious.
And yes, Arch is a hobbyist’s distro. They have bleeding edge software, so system stability is compromised. But as i said, it gives a chance to look at gnome or kde, for example, in a totally basic state. A heck lot of customization is needed to get gnome/kde to ubuntu/suse standards in terms of looks and functionality. Arch claims to be speedy because it’s stripped down. But that doesn’t necessarily translate into less bugs/high efficiency of the code.
So this means that there is some magic that Suse does with KDE, just like ubuntu does with gnome.
@caf4926,
Yes, that’s also fine…but by saying that, do you mean that if a system shows it’s using 400 mb ram, that’s including cache?? If i check using
*free -m *
Usually it won’t show more than 100-200 mb free. So that means it’s using memory for cache and main OS.
Linux is still straightforward in memory management afaik. I’m still perplexed why windows keeps using pagefile when it’s got plenty of ram. I’ve seldom seen linux using up my swap.
Oh…and i forgot to mention…Arch is good if you want to learn about the insides of the system…because a lot of the time is gone making changes…
Suse is best for a stable, working, stress free pc.
oh yeah, agree…I use openSUSE in a home/work environment so it’s very practical for me. It’s great.
I bet I can run openSUSE KDE 4.4 faster on my Precision m6500 than a typical Archer running Arch w/ Openbox on his laptop…rotfl! If I wanted to fool around with the system internals I’d go back to Slackware anyway…
hdhiman wrote:
> using
> -free -m -
> Usually it won’t show more than 100-200 mb free. So that means it’s
> using memory for cache and main OS.
since unlike other name brand operating systems Linux routinely holds on to whatever it has in memory as long it can (just in case
you need it again and it will therefore be faster to fetch from RAM)
and only releases it when it has to that you can always expect the
RAM used to far exceed the needs of running processes…
so, of my measly 1 GB of memory i see that 995 megs is USED…
oh no!! what a mem-hog…
but wait, i see that there is actually 516 of that “used” on the
“mem:” line is shown on the “buffer/cache:” memory line as “free”
(free to be dumped when actually needed, and just hanging around just
in case)…
so, instead of my current RAM needs being 995, it is actually 494
(1011 - 516 = 495 plus or minus rounding), pretty thrifty i think…
interesting (to me) i have 16 mb completely “free” which was the total
memory i had available to my ‘screaming’ OS/2 Warp machine in
1996…and, i paid over $400 non-inflated dollars for those 4 x 4 mb
sticks…
I think - and I’m no expert - that the point is mostly that it’s been set up correctly and cohesively, something that Arch point blank refuses to do, partly for lack of resources and partly for ideological reasons.
Don’t get me wrong - I really like Arch in many ways, and still have it installed (though I can’t remember when I last booted it, so it would probably die if I updated it…). But unless you intend to know the settings for the software you’re using fairly inside out, it’s a pain, and often an inefficient one. Openbox or xmonad, for example, are very much designed for the end user to build the settings from scratch. KDE not so much - which isn’t to say it can’t be done, but for most users ‘sane defaults’ is the best way to go, and that isn’t how Arch want things done.
