Re: How to Switch Between Gnome and KDE
On Sat, 5 Apr 2014 20:22:55 -0400
Stephen Allen <marathon.durandal@gmail.com> wrote:
> > ray <ray@aarden.us> wrote:
>
>
> > Gnome is referred to as a desktop environment, as it is much more
> > than just a manager of windows, menus etc. KDE is the other
> > heavyweight DE, there are two medium-weight DEs, LXDE and Xfce4.
> > There is also at least one fork of an older version of Gnome, as
> > the current Gnome is a bit heavy on resources and won't run well on
> > hardware more than a few years old.
>
> I see this mentioned a lot that Gnome-Shell won't run on hardware more
> than a "few" years old. This is patently false. I've run it on a
> laptop more than 7 years old with no issue what-so-ever. Gnome-Shell
> just disables stuff if it isn't supported hardware wise - some of the
> more interesting video effects that is.
>
> The issue isn't so much the hardware but the amount of ram one has on
> the applicable hardware. Even 7 year old hardware often has 1Gb of ram
> or even more.
>
>
OK, I did investigate it somewhat, and I'm being simplistic here. But
this investigation was begun when I upgraded to Gnome3 and on login I
was presented with a new, empty Gnome 'legacy' desktop after being told
somewhat curtly that my video hardware wasn't good enough for the
wonderful new desktop experience, and that the Gnome developers weren't
interested in 'legacy' hardware. My previous Gnome desktop
configurations had disappeared.
I call that 'not running well'.
Yes, I recovered it all, and even got Gnome3 working, but after a few
days I decided I didn't like all the extra keystrokes and steps to do
my usual jobs, and the distinct loss of speed, so I switched to LXDE.
And it is indeed the shell, and not Gnome itself which was the issue,
but that took a few days to get explained properly. I have no idea if
the 'legacy' shell is still being maintained, because at the time it
was made clear that it was only a temporary measure, presumably while
we all bought new video cards. I am still using some of Gnome3 itself
now, just not the desktop shell.
--
Joe
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