On GNOME 3.x now, really settled into it. I have heard claims that KDE is more efficient on resources than Xfce. Is there any truth to this? If so what are the significant differences or why this is?
this post was submitted on 10 Mar 2021
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I've heard that too. My understanding is that Xfce doesn't get updated very often and has become a meme in Linux community for diehards. KDE received a lot of hate in the 2000's for being the bulkiest and slowest DE. They did a huge overhaul of their code and now it's one of the fastest. Phoronix has a bunch of tests on their site you can check. On the why, I don't know the technical details but it's a community of 4 or 5 people at Xfce vs a community of >100 at KDE.
I wonder why they don't have a LXDE flavor. I used ~2006 era core2duos with some gma950 and 2 gb of ram until a few years ago. The performance of Lubuntu was unparalleled.
these blog posts are always just the repeating well-known comparision talking points (xfce: light, other: not). just like hundred other blogs.
Are live boot screenshots and RAM usage all there is about these DEs?
Well, other differences usually go very deep into the details and are ultimately a matter of taste. It's certainly not the case that all of these have a unique selling point, because well, they're not products trying to sell themselves.
Having said that, these are the high-level differences as I see them:
Cinnamon:
- Very Windows-like (aesthetics and keyboard shortcuts)
- one polished workflow
- covers relatively many exotic usage scenarios relatively well
MATE:
- relatively lightweight
- one polished workflow
Xfce:
- relatively lightweight
- very modular and customizable
i would say the target reader is people who haven't read all the other hundred other blogs
I was a Gnome 2 user back in the day and then used KDE for a while. After some Linux-Desktop-Pause I installed Mint and used Cinnamon for a couple of yrs, so I've tested thru the bank. As I switched back to my beloved Debian I tried out the Gnome 3 UI in Buster for the first time. I find the Gnome 3 UI actually refreshing and different. I figured out that I was, after yrs of Linux usage, still trying to think of Linux Desktop in a way that it should be "Windows-like" in appearance. No need for that! People over at Gnome are trying new stuff and this is good! Cinnamon is a great DE, but Gnome 3 doesn't deserve the bashing it gets.
GNOME
I don't like any DE. IMHO, DEs go against the KISS principle.