Re: KDE on a slow machine (was: Best WM for slow machine?)
On Sunday 10 June 2001 08:23 pm, Margarete Hans wrote:
> Mmh. My laptop has 20 MB of RAM. I don't think that I'll be using it
> very extensively - it is rather a test to decide if I'm going to
> install debian on my "main" computer, which by now is also starting to
> get old (166 with 32 MB of RAM and 3 GB HD - still running windows
> ( ). Does gnome use as much memory as KDE?
> Besides, what does KDE give you more than these smaller WMs?
>
KDE is a whole desktop environment. It's got it's own file manager, web
browser, terminal emulator, game collection, etc. etc. etc. It's got pretty
much everything you need. Same goes for Gnome. They're very ambitious
projects to provide the whole desktop widget.
The other WM's we've listed are just that. Window managers. They draw the
windows. They let you drag them around. They pop up a couple of menus. They
manage virtual desktops (a major advantage over windows, IMHO). They let you
minimize windows and pop them up again. And that's pretty much it. Some have
dockapps that will do things like show you CPU usage, but those are
extraneous. They're toolkit independant, and are basically very minimalist.
KDE is by no means light. I've got 128MB on my desktop here, and KDE
regularly sucks up all of it. Gnome's a little lighter until you fire up a
browser.
Nothing will make you hate your Debian experience more than constantly
hitting the swap, and if you've only got 20MB, I seriously recommend using
something very lightweight.
- David Nusinow
krmt1984@ucla.edu
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