Ryan Petris via PLUG-discuss said on Mon, 24 Oct 2022 06:38:38 -0700

>> Neither. They're both slow, entangled pigs. Gnome has a weird,
>> inobvious user interface. If you want something performant, simple
>> and clean, LXDE is the way to go.  
>
>I just wanted to rebut this...
>
>GNOME, I would say, is different, not weird. It's designed in a way
>where the desktop environment gets out of your way, only appearing
>when you really need it. 

If you really want your wm/de to get out of your way, adopt my
interface: Openbox/dmenu/UMENU. My entire screen except for an 8 pixel
stripe down the left is available for my windows. When I hit
Shift+Ctrl+semicolon it brings up an alphabetized list of all path
executables, and as I type characters the list narrows, enabling me to
select one. Typically the process consists of Shift+Ctrl+semicolon,
four characters, then the enter key. Quicker than you can reach for a
mouse.

UMENU is for running predefined commands, and also providing a unified
menu interface to one or more executables with complicated command line
options.

> What you do see by default is stuff that you
>really want to see at a glance, like what program is selected, what
>the time is, how much battery you have left, etc.. If you want to see
>more, you can open activities or a menu to see more.
>
>If you're worried about RAM usage, my GNOME installs use about 1G of
>RAM on boot, 

Nuf said. See https://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/cmp-all4.png

And it isn't just whether you have the memory. Memory access is quick
but finite. The more memory you access, the slower things get.
With Gnome and KDE, it's perceptible. And don't forget all the CPU
you're spending to keep that RAM organized. Bottom line, With
OpenBox, the delay between a keypress and its result is imperceptible.

> but that also includes several other programs I run on
>startup like Syncthing, a Syncthing GUI, Solaar, etc.. If you have
>even a modest amount of RAM, say at least 8GB, this is not a problem.
>What else are you going to use that RAM for anyway? 

VM guests. Disk caching. Programs that operate all in RAM instead of
repeatedly writing intermediate files.


> If you're always
>trying to maximize "free" RAM then you're just wasting your money by
>having more RAM than you need.

Until you spin up a few VM guests.


>GNOME is also not slow, in fact on any hardware made in say the last
>10 years, it's incredibly fast and smooth. Even in a
>non-graphics-acellerated environment, it's still fast as by default it
>disables all animations. Even Core 2 Duo machines can run GNOME like a
>champ.

My last usage of Gnome was about 14 years ago, so I'll let this
assertion go unchallenged.

>
>Lastly, GNOME also integrates well with standard systemd services.

"Integrates well" is one way of putting it. I'd phrase it as
"requires". "Integration" might seem great, but when things go wrong,
"integration" becomes a plague. And don't get me started on systemd.

>
>Now, if you want to talk about KDE, I've had it take 10-15 seconds to
>start up on a brand new machine where GNOME would start in a second or
>two. That and it kind of wants to do its own thing for a lot of stuff
>makes me not want to use it.
>
>But to call either of them "slow, entangled pigs", no, I absolutely
>cannot agree with you.

OK. Because I haven't used Gnome or KDE since the 00's, I'll retract
the slow part, although I've seen very few software programs that got
faster over the years, assuming the same hardware. As far as
"entangled", you said so yourself, except you used the word
"integrates" instead of "entangles". Same meaning.

>
>If you have a relatively modern computer, you're giving up a lot going
>the LXDE route, 

If you take the ultra-simple step of incorporating dmenu as a hotkey,
all you give up is slowness. Have you ever used LXDE?

> and will overall add more frustration to your Linux
>experience. I'd only use "lightweight" environments on really old/slow
>computers.
>
>Not to disparage the maintainers of LXDE or LXQt either, but GNOME and
>KDE have much more resources put behind them, constantly improving.

I'd hardly call the changes improvements. They're both massively
entangled monoliths. Last time I used KDE it brought my computer to its
knees, and I had a good computer. Last time I used Gnome they replaced
an easy and intuitive interface for something much more humanly
complex. Both KDE and Gnome reached their high water mark in 2005, and
their plunge into the depths of complexity spawned the creation and
adoption of many successful competitors.

>LXDE has been abandoned

Because GTk has become a mess. Every time I run a GTk app from the
command prompt, I see tens of GTk warnings. When *I* write software I
get rid of all the warnings.

>  and LXQt is slow moving. 

Why should it move fast? Why should it move at all? It's fine. Free
Software isn't like cars, where every year a new model must be brought
out to obsolete the old model. Or at least I hope not.

> On top of that LXQt
>even pulls in some dependencies from KDE, 

Besides Qt itself, what KDE dependendencies are in LXQt?

> so you can't really argue
>much about LXQt being more lightweight than KDE when they're using the
>same core features.

See
https://blog.lxde.org/2016/10/04/benchmark-memory-usage-lxqt-desktop-environment-vs-xfce/
for the real story.

SteveT

Steve Litt 
Summer 2022 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
http://www.troubleshooters.com/bookstore/thrive.htm
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