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Here I'm republishing an old blog post of mine originally from August 2012. The article has been slightly improved.
This is part 3 of my desktop testing series. We'll deal with the 4 Qt-based desktop environments in this entry.
For test criteria and details about the basic Arch system used, please refer to the first part of this test:
Linux desktop comparison (pt. 1): Modern GTK+ DEs
KDE was the first big Linux desktop project. In the beginning it was inspired by CDE (Common Desktop Environment), the classical Unix desktop. Depending on the at that time unfree Qt toolkit, many people stated that a free DE should rather be based on something else (this was in fact why the coding of GNOME begun). Qt was later released under the GPL so this is no longer an issue. KDE has turned into a heavy-weight DE in the meantime - it consists of a huge amount of applications and there's probably nothing you would ever miss there. All these programs are coordinated so that they provide a assortative experience and feeling.
Starting with KDE 4, the whole project has been renamed to "KDE Software Compilation" and the former actual "K Desktop Environment" is now known as "Plasma Workspaces". KDE has always tried to offer a visually appealing desktop. Many people also like it because it is multi-functional, very configurable and highly customizable. Others call it a classical example for unnecessary bloat.
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit dbus virtualbox-archlinux-additions kdebase
Memory usage right after starting up KDE Plasma (with a second login on tty2) and used disk space after removing pacman cache. Here are the values I got with _cat /proc/meminfo_ and _df_ respectively _df -h_:
Arch Linux + KDE Plasma (4.9.0) MemTotal: 1030652 KB MemFree: 650340 KB Buffers: 18348 KB Cached: 181256 KB Rootfs: 2001712 / 2.0 GB [RAM used at startup: 380312 / ~371 MB] [Disk space (without base OS): 1347424 / 1.3 GB]
Razor-Qt is a rather young project with the goal to deliver a light-weight DE based on the Qt toolkit. So far it is rather "bare bones": it doesn't come with a lot of its own applications (e.g. no default file manager!) or its own WM (Openbox is suggested). It offers just a simple, light-weight DE - nothing more and nothing less. It's a bit like "LXDE on Qt" - in its very early stages. Definitely a promising project, though!
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit dbus virtualbox-archlinux-additions openbox
pacman -U razor-qt-0.4.1-3-i686.pkg.tar.xz
Memory usage right after starting up Razor-Qt (with a second login on tty2) and used disk space after removing pacman cache. Here are the values I got with _cat /proc/meminfo_ and _df_ respectively _df -h_:
Arch Linux + Razor-Qt (0.4.1) MemTotal: 1030652 KB MemFree: 911849 KB Buffers: 9724 KB Cached: 58784 KB Rootfs: 885320 / 865 MB [RAM used at startup: 118803 / ~116 MB] [Disk space (without base OS): 231032 / 226 MB]
Unity 2D is merely the "fallback mode" of the Unity UI on machines that do not provide hardware accelerated 3D graphics. Except for being build with Qt, it's more or less the same thing without too many differences. It is more than questionable however whether this desktop will continue to be developed in the future.
pacman -U freetype2-ubuntu-2.4.10-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
pacman -U fontconfig-ubuntu-2.8.0-10-i686.pkg.tar.xz
pacman -U libxft-ubuntu-2.3.1-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
pacman -U glew1.7-1.7.0-1-i686.pkg.tar.xz
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit dbus virtualbox-archlinux-additions
Additional repository “unity”: http://unity.xe-xe.org/$arch
pacman -S $(pacman -Slq unity)
Memory usage right after starting up Unity 2D (with a second login on tty2) and used disk space after removing pacman cache. Here are the values I got with _cat /proc/meminfo_ and _df_ respectively _df -h_:
Arch Linux + Unity2D (6.0.0) MemTotal: 1030652 KB MemFree: 616580 KB Buffers: 25884 KB Cached: 163848 KB Rootfs: 2862336 / 2,8 GB [RAM used at startup: 414072 / ~404 MB] [Disk space (without base OS): 2208048 / 2,15 GB]
The Trinity DE (TDE) is a fork of the former KDE version 3. Not everybody was happy with what Plasma is all about - not even every KDE user. Because of this some people have volunteered to continue development of KDE 3 under the name of Trinity DE. The next version which is expected some time this fall should fix all incompatibilities so that KDE 4 and Trinity can be installed on the same machine. HAL will still be used in this version but will be replaced in the future. Quite some new features have been implemented since the latest 3.x release of KDE. Trinity DE is for KDE 3 what MATE is for GNOME 2: More than just a "keep-alive project"! If you used KDE in the past but did not like the way that Plasma took, take a look at Trinity!
Additional repo “tde3513”: http://archlinux.us.to/3.5.13/i686/
pacman -S xorg-server xorg-xinit dbus virtualbox-archlinux-additions tde-base
Memory usage right after starting up TDE (with a second login on tty2) and used disk space after removing pacman cache. Here are the values I got with _cat /proc/meminfo_ and _df_ respectively _df -h_:
Arch Linux + Trinity (3.5.13) MemTotal: 1030652 KB MemFree: 823912 KB Buffers: 18272 KB Cached: 97764 KB Rootfs: 2720876 / 2.6 GB [RAM used at startup: 206740 / ~202 MB] [Disk space (without base OS): 2066588 / 2.02 GB]
The Qt-based DEs are quite a bit on the heavier side in terms of general RAM usage. Trinity is rather high and KDE Plasma even higher, just as one would expect. Only Razor-Qt is a lot more slim than the others and doing rather good. I guess, we don't need to even talk about Unity 2D and its demand of RAM...
