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> They use less data. And generally they do that by offering fewer features (and yes - aesthetics and ergonomics are features!). By the time I'm installing Gn

> They use less data. And generally they do that by offering fewer features (and yes - aesthetics and ergonomics are features!). By the time I'm installing Gnome/KDE... I've already picked a heavy DE - I want it to be extensible (js/css in gnome is pretty great), pretty, and fast on a modern machine. I'm not picking those DEs for a constrained environments. In those envs - I may well just skip the DE although, or go with something lighter like Sway. But when I have 32gb of RAM... I really would prefer the feature rich DEs continue to focus on features when the usage is ~6% of RAM (2/32's). The RAM is, all things considered, outrageously cheap compared to their dev team's time. When I want to conserve RAM... I'll pick a different tool.

lucideer 4y ago
> And generally they do that by offering fewer features (and yes - aesthetics and ergonomics are features!). XFCE has more features than modern Gnome. Aesthetics comes from GTK, which it uses. Ergonomics is better in Gnome, largely due to consistency, which I'd attribute to Gnome's development effort: more people to work on more coordinated behaviours across apps & integrations - XFCE borrows small parts of Gnome's work while also using a patchwork of other solutions from elsewhere; an approach which detracts from the UX. This is about engineer resourcing though, not engineering approach to performance. The latter is an independent variable. There's nothing "heavy" about Gnome aesthetically of feature-wise except the general inefficiency of its implementations. Especially feature-wise in its latest incarnations: ever since the Unity/Shell split &c., the Gnome featureset as contracted significantly from what it once was. > I want it to be extensible (js/css in gnome is pretty great) What's great about it specifically? It's unrealised potential? Gnome's extensibility is a graveyard. The pace of API changes (another code smell when it comes to engineering approach), compared to the tiny level of community contribution of Shell extensions means most of those available for download are broken. Those that work are minimal / have inconsistent UX / no docs. If you've got to write your own code to customise the thing anyway, why not just use a more esoteric highly-customisable DE in the first place?
- horsawlarway 4y ago
  You know it's ok to just say you don't like Gnome. I'm not going to judge. I think the 2gb it eats are essentially trivial costs to pay compared to the functionality you get (easily comparable to modern windows/macOS) given the costs of those alternatives. I'm on my work mac right now, and it's using 26gb of ram right now (mostly dev related) - but at least 4gb of which is for non-application usage... to count: windowServer is 1.3 softwareupdated is 1.2 softwareUpdateNotificationManager/Finder/systemSoundserverd are another 1 misc services are about .72 Basically - you can complain about how inefficient Gnome is all day - I'm telling you that it DOES NOT CHANGE THE VALUE PROPOSITION. It's plenty efficient for what it does. Please use the RAM - keep focused on features.

lucideer 4y ago

> And generally they do that by offering fewer features (and yes - aesthetics and ergonomics are features!). XFCE has more features than modern Gnome. Aesthetics comes from GTK, which it uses. Ergonomics is better in Gnome, largely due to consistency, which I'd attribute to Gnome's development effort: more people to work on more coordinated behaviours across apps & integrations - XFCE borrows small parts of Gnome's work while also using a patchwork of other solutions from elsewhere; an approach which detracts from the UX. This is about engineer resourcing though, not engineering approach to performance. The latter is an independent variable. There's nothing "heavy" about Gnome aesthetically of feature-wise except the general inefficiency of its implementations. Especially feature-wise in its latest incarnations: ever since the Unity/Shell split &c., the Gnome featureset as contracted significantly from what it once was. > I want it to be extensible (js/css in gnome is pretty great) What's great about it specifically? It's unrealised potential? Gnome's extensibility is a graveyard. The pace of API changes (another code smell when it comes to engineering approach), compared to the tiny level of community contribution of Shell extensions means most of those available for download are broken. Those that work are minimal / have inconsistent UX / no docs. If you've got to write your own code to customise the thing anyway, why not just use a more esoteric highly-customisable DE in the first place?

horsawlarway 4y ago
You know it's ok to just say you don't like Gnome. I'm not going to judge. I think the 2gb it eats are essentially trivial costs to pay compared to the functionality you get (easily comparable to modern windows/macOS) given the costs of those alternatives. I'm on my work mac right now, and it's using 26gb of ram right now (mostly dev related) - but at least 4gb of which is for non-application usage... to count: windowServer is 1.3 softwareupdated is 1.2 softwareUpdateNotificationManager/Finder/systemSoundserverd are another 1 misc services are about .72 Basically - you can complain about how inefficient Gnome is all day - I'm telling you that it DOES NOT CHANGE THE VALUE PROPOSITION. It's plenty efficient for what it does. Please use the RAM - keep focused on features.