Distribution Showdown - KDE Wins!!!!!!!

[dmeyer]

Kubuntu is not heavy on resources anymore than Xubuntu, Lubuntu or any other *buntu is heavy on resources. It could be that when trying to run Kubuntu on low end hardware with limited memory, people forget to install the low-fat settings and to turn of the desktop search in KDE. But please quit saying that Kubuntu is heavy on resources because somebody failed to finish setting it for the hardware after post installation. Kubuntu runs quite well on 1GB of ram with an atom processor in an asus eeePC 1005ah. It will even run acceptably with 512K ram if you don't try and load Caligra or Libreoffice. Kubuntu does just fine on netbooks with 1gb ram. That platform won't let you play 3d games in an acceptable manner, nor would I want to recompile the kernel on a netbook, but that is a limitation of the hardware, not Kubuntu.

Things that slow down Kubuntu or any distro on a limited machine -- eye candy, particularly blur effect, desktop search, how many installed fonts, themes, decorations and the like there are and what plasma widgets are running. Turn off the stuff you don't want/need and Kubuntu is pretty swift. Not as fast as Arch, but that is the price you pay for convenience.

I'm not bashing. It is true, Kubuntu is not a very light implementation of KDE but it is a very good one. I have benchmarks somewhere on my computer where I tested a whole host of KDE focused distros and Kubuntu was one of the poorer performers. Unfortunately I didn't test the low fat settings and it was 12.04 but I did have both KDE 4.8.x and 4.9.x tested. I really need to try find it, it was one helluva test because I spent nearly two days trying to find my favourite and "fastest/lightest" KDE distro.

Still, Kubuntu runs fast on nearly all hardware so most complaints are unfounded.

[oshunluvr]

Still, Kubuntu runs fast on nearly all hardware so most complaints are unfounded.

Very true. There's a huge gap (IMO of course) between what a tester might discern as a large difference in memory usage or speed when an actual user might not notice those things at all. What becomes the greater measure is the actual hands-on experience - difficult to quantify, as we all have different "hands."

[dmeyer]

Very true. There's a huge gap (IMO of course) between what a tester might discern as a large difference in memory usage or speed when an actual user might not notice those things at all. What becomes the greater measure is the actual hands-on experience - difficult to quantify, as we all have different "hands."

Exactly, people notice things like an animation not being smooth or clicking on something and not getting some instant feedback (Microsoft did a great UX study where they showed how Office could be slow but still feel fast). All the QML emphasis is really making everything super smooth, especially the animations. OSX is a great example, its not very efficient but all the OS animations are so smooth and consistent. It just feels fast but it isn't, nor is it all that light on memory either.

To most: Smooth == Fast.