Aaron Seigo Talks About the KDE SC 5.0, More
Linked by suka on Thu 25th Aug 2011 22:19 UTC
KDE "After years of focusing on further improving KDE4 two weeks ago the developers of the free desktop announced the next big step for their project: KDE Frameworks 5.0. But as long-time developer - and Plasma team leader - Aaron Seigo points out in an interview with derStandard.at/web, the source-incompatible changes shall be held to a minimum. Also calls Frameworks 5.0 only the "first step", new Applications and Workspace releases are to follow later, Seigo goes on to talk about the chances in the mobile market with Plasma Active and further areas of collaboration with the other big free desktop: GNOME."
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lemur2
Member since:
2007-02-17

Are you using an opengl accelerated desktop at all?

Frankly speaking I have a hard time believing that with desktop effects enabled this hardware "runs KDE4 just great". I wouldn't go that far to accuse you of spreading FUD but I think our understanding of the word "great" is vastly different.


It works better and snappier than Windows 7 on the same machine.

I have full desktop effects enabled, I have a perfectly smooth "desktop cube" animation effect for switching virtual desktops, I can use either Xrender or OpenGL for the desktop effects rendering engine. If I set the special desktop effect "Show FPS" I observe a reading of 60 fps kwin rendering most of the time, occasionally dropping down to 55 fps when something happens.

Firefox 6 renders the HWACCEL test from Mozilla at 33 fps, even while kwin desktop effects are enabled. If I disable kwin desktop effects, HWACCEL test in Firefox 6 shows 44 fps.

http://demos.hacks.mozilla.org/openweb/HWACCEL/

What I said is based on my observations only. Perhaps our experiences are different, if so - good for you, but that doesn't make my critique invalid, nor your observations universal.

FYR, in my case (2 core Intel i5@2.66GHz + GeForce 310M tested with both OS and nVidia drivers) KDE4.6 runs "OK'ish". Slightly less smooth than Compiz (both with very minimal sets of effects) but the speed is satisfactory for daily use. However, KDE4 (either kwin or some background services) makes this PC quite a bit hotter, which is a show stopper for me (it would be acceptable on a workstation but not on a laptop).


Au contraire, the fact that KDE4 works as well as it does on my low-power, 1Ghz CPU, 1GB memory (shared between the CPU and the video graphics), shows that KDE4 itself is not slow, nor does it heat up machines. KDE4 is capable of great performance on very modest hardware. This is the way it is supposed to perform, and that it can perform if the underlying supporting system is correct.

If KDE4 does not achieve good performance on your hardware, then there is something wrong with your machine's software stack "underneath" KDE4. KDE4 is exposing some problem with your machine's graphics stack.

If KDE4 itself was broken, then no-one would get good performance from it.

Edited 2011-08-26 13:43 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 4

dragossh Member since:
2008-12-16

And this is why Windows, as much as you want to complain about it, will still be better than Linux + KDE. If it doesn't work, Microsoft is the one who gets the blame. And they create workarounds, not go around telling people it's their machine's fault.

I'm all for clean implementations and I see the reasoning behind telling people "it's your machine that's buggy," but then please don't go around telling people they're spreading FUD. Either create workarounds or put up with critics.

Reply Parent Score: 2

lemur2 Member since:
2007-02-17

And this is why Windows, as much as you want to complain about it, will still be better than Linux + KDE. If it doesn't work, Microsoft is the one who gets the blame. And they create workarounds, not go around telling people it's their machine's fault.

I'm all for clean implementations and I see the reasoning behind telling people "it's your machine that's buggy," but then please don't go around telling people they're spreading FUD. Either create workarounds or put up with critics.


No-one can expect everyone else to be an expert on how to install complex software properly, an expert on what works and what doesn't, or even an expert on how to tell what part of a system is to blame if it is not working well. Ordinary people simply don't normally have that kind of expertise.

So, as an ordinary person, if you get Linux on the same terms as you get Windows ... which is pre-installed by a vendor on a machined designed to run it, then there will be no such problems with it. Certainly there will be far less problems with such a Linux machine than one that was bought with Windows pre-installed, since, for example, you won't ever get the experience of a boot up that took over an hour to complete, such as I had recently with Windows 7. The maximum boot time you would ever see would be less than 30 seconds.

A machine which can run Linux + KDE well, bought with Linux pre-installed (i.e. the same conditions under which you get Windows) will easily outperform a Windows machine of equivalent specifications, have far better software pre-installed for you, be more stable, have far better availability, be infinitely less likely to ever get malware, and be much cheaper to buy and run. Without any doubt whatsoever.

So, if one's self-installed KDE desktop is not working well on one's nVidia-graphics-with-proprietary-driver machine, and one is NOT an expert, given that no-one on the planet is working toward making such a setup actually work, and given the only people who can do so are nvidia, and they refuse to divulge any information to anyone involved in Linux, then the very last thing one should do, in the face of people telling you that KDE4 actually works very well, is to claim that no, it sucks.

Linux + KDE4 doesn't suck, it is actually very, very good, as can easily be demonstrated by running it on a system which isn't broken.

Right now, such a store-bought Linux machine would probably use AMD, and shun nVidia stuff. That is no-one's fault except nVidia.

I fail to see why KDE should be expected to work around nVidia's refusal to provide either properly working drivers or, alternatively, programming specifications so that Linux open source kernel developers could write a decent driver.

Edited 2011-08-27 07:21 UTC

Reply Parent Score: 2