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XFCE being stuck on X11 was what finally made me finally move to KDE when I installed Linux on my machine at work a few months ago When compiling code on a rem

XFCE being stuck on X11 was what finally made me finally move to KDE when I installed Linux on my machine at work a few months ago When compiling code on a remote machine, a terminal on one window would cause YouTube videos to lag on the other! As far as I could ascertain, there was simply no hardware accelerated playback going on. Both Chrome and Firefox had seemingly abandoned X11 for a Vulkan based render backend on Wayland After leaving KDE 5 to "marinate" overnight (I use Gentoo, so compiling an entire desktop environment like KDE can be time consuming) everything "just worked" I miss the visual simplicity of XFCE and I'm hopeful to return to it one day, but in the interim, responsiveness is key

dev_snd 2y ago
Yeah, it's pretty much the same story for me; after having found out how to get all the same features in KDE that I had in xfce, there was no way back. I always like to use the lightweight and less resource intensive software, but arguably not using hardware acceleration is actually very resource hungry.
- bogwog 2y ago
  > I always like to use the lightweight and less resource intensive software, but arguably not using hardware acceleration is actually very resource hungry. What hardware are you using where KDE is considered "resource intensive", yet it also has a GPU that supports Vulkan and hardware video decoding? I've used KDE for a long time, and can't remember a time when I noticed its resource usage (and I used to daily drive a ThinkPad X200 as late as 2016)
  - o11c 2y ago
    I once noticed a memory leak in KDE when setting the background to a (very many image) slideshow instead of a single image. That was probably sometime around 2015. Normally it's a bit tricky to calculate memory blame between X11, the WM, and the shell, since often their allocations are actually on behalf of an application, and killing the application will reclaim it.
  - infamia 2y ago
    I notice KDE's resource utilization more or less constantly. With KDE's bling turned all the way down, Kwin constantly uses 5-10% CPU when I am literally doing nothing (with my hands off the mouse/keyboard). This causes my laptop fans to noticeably spin up and makes them a lot more prone to spinning up more forcefully while doing a small task. With XFCE, my fan never audibly spins up unless I'm actively doing something. Even if I just do something small/quick, my fans don't spin up most of the time. edit: typos
    - iso8859-1 2y ago
      Laptops with loud fans makes it really easy to find inefficient software. Most people nowadays would just get a fanless computer and give up on fighting the bloat. But I appreciate your sacrifice, thank you.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  KDE 6 isn't really that much heavier than a "full install" of xfce to be honest. I just prefer the simplicity (probably 1/10th the adjustability of KDE) of xfce for ease of maintenance, but KDE is fine too.
zekica 2y ago
Firefox on X11 works fine if you enable media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled in about:config
- lottin 2y ago
  Thanks for the tip. I didn't have it enabled, but to be honest I've never noticed any lag when playing back videos or in any other situation.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    With all the cores in modern PC's I'd doubt if you would unless you're on a computer that is 8 or 10 years old
- bongodongobob 2y ago
  Y'all need to remember this in those threads when you say Linux just works and MS's registry is stupid and needs tweaking to work right.
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    Eh the thing for me is that the config is distributed and fairly easy to correct. If you're fiddling with Windows registry, you better make sure to do a snapshot/backup beforehand. I don't have to do any of that with linux, I just do a simple cp to file.backup and if I hose the system do an emergency boot or linux on usb and fix it.
  - sweeter 2y ago
    This guy was using Gentoo on what I'm guessing is an older laptop. That kind of comes with the territory. You don't use LFS or Gentoo as a daily driver and expect not to do some footwork... but if you use Mint, Fedora, Pop_OS, Ubuntu/Debian etc... it pretty much is "just works." Of course, you have to do stuff on pretty much any PC, Windows, Mac or Linux. I own them all and know this to be the case... it's just that some people are blind to the things that they have to do everyday on their OS of choice.

dev_snd 2y ago

Yeah, it's pretty much the same story for me; after having found out how to get all the same features in KDE that I had in xfce, there was no way back. I always like to use the lightweight and less resource intensive software, but arguably not using hardware acceleration is actually very resource hungry.

bogwog 2y ago
> I always like to use the lightweight and less resource intensive software, but arguably not using hardware acceleration is actually very resource hungry. What hardware are you using where KDE is considered "resource intensive", yet it also has a GPU that supports Vulkan and hardware video decoding? I've used KDE for a long time, and can't remember a time when I noticed its resource usage (and I used to daily drive a ThinkPad X200 as late as 2016)
- o11c 2y ago
  I once noticed a memory leak in KDE when setting the background to a (very many image) slideshow instead of a single image. That was probably sometime around 2015. Normally it's a bit tricky to calculate memory blame between X11, the WM, and the shell, since often their allocations are actually on behalf of an application, and killing the application will reclaim it.
- infamia 2y ago
  I notice KDE's resource utilization more or less constantly. With KDE's bling turned all the way down, Kwin constantly uses 5-10% CPU when I am literally doing nothing (with my hands off the mouse/keyboard). This causes my laptop fans to noticeably spin up and makes them a lot more prone to spinning up more forcefully while doing a small task. With XFCE, my fan never audibly spins up unless I'm actively doing something. Even if I just do something small/quick, my fans don't spin up most of the time. edit: typos
  - iso8859-1 2y ago
    Laptops with loud fans makes it really easy to find inefficient software. Most people nowadays would just get a fanless computer and give up on fighting the bloat. But I appreciate your sacrifice, thank you.
EasyMark 2y ago
KDE 6 isn't really that much heavier than a "full install" of xfce to be honest. I just prefer the simplicity (probably 1/10th the adjustability of KDE) of xfce for ease of maintenance, but KDE is fine too.

zekica 2y ago

Firefox on X11 works fine if you enable media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled in about:config

lottin 2y ago
Thanks for the tip. I didn't have it enabled, but to be honest I've never noticed any lag when playing back videos or in any other situation.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  With all the cores in modern PC's I'd doubt if you would unless you're on a computer that is 8 or 10 years old
bongodongobob 2y ago
Y'all need to remember this in those threads when you say Linux just works and MS's registry is stupid and needs tweaking to work right.
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Eh the thing for me is that the config is distributed and fairly easy to correct. If you're fiddling with Windows registry, you better make sure to do a snapshot/backup beforehand. I don't have to do any of that with linux, I just do a simple cp to file.backup and if I hose the system do an emergency boot or linux on usb and fix it.
- sweeter 2y ago
  This guy was using Gentoo on what I'm guessing is an older laptop. That kind of comes with the territory. You don't use LFS or Gentoo as a daily driver and expect not to do some footwork... but if you use Mint, Fedora, Pop_OS, Ubuntu/Debian etc... it pretty much is "just works." Of course, you have to do stuff on pretty much any PC, Windows, Mac or Linux. I own them all and know this to be the case... it's just that some people are blind to the things that they have to do everyday on their OS of choice.