3 ms·

Whether a distro will seem "slow" or "fast" is almost entirely down to which desktop is installed by default on that distro. But users should know that they are

Whether a distro will seem "slow" or "fast" is almost entirely down to which desktop is installed by default on that distro. But users should know that they are not limited to that default desktop, and they can just type a few commands and switch to some lighter desktop if their hardware doesn’t smoothly run the default. Therefore, it is rather a waste of time to completely switch to a different distro just for the sake of speedups.

zozbot234 6y ago
The desktop is relevant, but so is the default selection of background services. On Debian, choosing a lightweight desktop is trivial (no need to download a separate image, unless you're specifically doing a live install) and the background services are a lot more streamlined as well.
m463 6y ago
i had gnome on ubuntu and gnome on arch, and arch was significantly faster. I should try a debian install.
- markosaric 6y ago
  I've done some testing and if you install minimal Gnome on Arch and minimal Gnome on Debian Testing/Sid (Gnome version on Stable is few versions behind) you pretty much get the same speed and memory usage. Much faster than Fedora and even Ubuntu. To install minimal Gnome on Debian, use the netinst.iso, untick everything on the last step where it asks you to choose a DE, log in after installation is complete, do apt install gnome-core and reboot into a very minimal Gnome. I write this from that setup.
- snazz 6y ago
  Probably the background services and the fact that Arch doesn't come with AppArmor or SELinux running OOTB.
  - deleted 6y ago
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