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Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 6:59 am
by Jerry3904
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:25 am
by Auro Kumar Sahoo
What I understand from most of his review, He is a good user and reviewer to KDE. And most of time I agree with his views. He has good logics to it. KDE is definitely a more advanced desktop in Linux than anything. Wheather you hate it or love it, it's best professional desktop and usable after unity.
Xfce is like windows 98, and KDE is windows 7. Both works, but when you see modern support like android integrated or Firefox KDE integration.. and look & feel KDE is more features with same memory stamp even better at 350 mb Ram and 1-2% cpu.
And one of my desire is the how beautiful it will be when one perfectly combine best of 2 world, KDE and core MX.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:26 am
by JayM
The performance benefit isn't as huge as it used to, because Plasma is super lean, too.
Oh, really??? That's news to me and to my computers.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:31 am
by asqwerth
That is a rather shallow review, though. He mentions modern relevance of xfce and doesn't check out the display scaling functionality, support for multi-displays, etc?
How hard would it be to actually test some of the stuff in the What's New release notes, and then write a substantial review on how well these things work or don't work?
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:33 am
by Auro Kumar Sahoo
JayM wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:26 am
The performance benefit isn't as huge as it used to, because Plasma is super lean, too.
Oh, really??? That's news to me and to my computers.
Yes, the modern KDE 5.16 is 350 mb Ram with 0-1% CPU at a fresh start or idle state.(as tested on KDE neon and kubuntu minimal)
Xfce usually during 2012 has better and lower memory footprint, but now at 450-500 mb it's more to KDE.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:38 am
by JayM
They must have improved Plasma a lot since I last used it. Even Adrian's KDE respin is slower than Xfce. I haven't tried Jack Daniel's.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:40 am
by chrispop99
About the only thing I agree with him on is the 'folder' confusion.
I spent a while trying to make it work, until I discovered that it it not implemented OOTB. The release notes should really have been clear about that.
Chris
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:45 am
by asqwerth
JayM, you have to test the newer versions. They do feel lighter and faster.
I have it on Neon Developer's Edition and Sabayon. Don't know how new the plasma versions will be in MX17/18 respins, being based on Stretch.
But I'm still not as comfortable on the interface compared with GTK based DEs.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:48 am
by JayM
Maybe I'll test Plasma on MX-19 and see what happens.
I've been fond of KDE since it was new and the only choice was between it or Gnome, but since switching to MX I've also grown to appreciate Xfce a lot. So we'll see how it goes.
I used to use PCLOS with Plasma and when switching distros a KDE 5.x version being available was kind of a deal-breaker for me, just because Plasma was what I was already used to and knew pretty well. I think that's a lot of it for DE preferences: what you already know and feel comfortable with. I got used to Cinnamon on Mint last year too, when they dropped a KDE version with Tara, and rather liked it once I got used to it.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:49 am
by asqwerth
I'm not saying that XFCE 4.14 is necessarily the bee's knees; I'm just saying that if you want to write a review on it, then be more thorough, examine the things that are actually new, and tell your readers about it.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:05 am
by JayM
I agree. Changing from GTK2 to 3 is actually a big thing, and there were a lot of bugfixes too.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:08 am
by Jerry3904
now at 450-500 mb it's more to KDE
Is that correct for everybody?!
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:50 am
by ChrisUK
Jerry3904 wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:08 am
now at 450-500 mb it's more to KDE
Is that correct for everybody?!
Every picture tells a story... see attached
XFCE on MX18.3 - note uptime.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:07 am
by jackdanielsesq
Mine is hot ....
There is simply no comparison - try it, you are a co-conspirator, baby - whether you like it or not
Jack
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-kde-iso/files/
JayM wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:38 am
They must have improved Plasma a lot since I last used it. Even Adrian's KDE respin is slower than Xfce. I haven't tried Jack Daniel's.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:04 am
by dolphin_oracle
Jerry3904 wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:08 am
now at 450-500 mb it's more to KDE
Is that correct for everybody?!
I'm running about 540 mb on mx19 w/ xfce 4.14.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:09 am
by Jerry3904
Huh! That's quite a jump.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:11 am
by dolphin_oracle
Jerry3904 wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:09 am
Huh! That's quite a jump.
every debian jump is a good sized one. in xfce's case, the gtk3 stuff is usually larger too.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:45 am
by dreamer
Meanwhile on Windows:
20 year old toolkit(s)
Fractional scaling
Backwards compatibility
Not every application is perfect, but it shows you don't have to break everything to implement modern features.
It's heavy though:
1.2 GB RAM (Enterprise LTSC with some tweaks)
It's proprietary and full of telemetry... Apart from the Store and UWP apps (which aren't installed), Microsoft didn't reinvent the toolkit(s) and that's appreciated. GTK3 has been a lost decade for Linux. That's my opinion anyway.
There are improvements in Xfce 4.14, but the main effort was spent porting to GTK3. And because GTK3 offers nothing except 2.x scaling, it's easy to simply say "meh", despite the considerable effort.
Then there are GTK3 regressions compared to GTK2, because everything written "from scratch" has regressions. Another throw away the baby with the bathwater type of thing. Both Xfce and Cinnamon devs seem positive though and that's the only thing that makes me believe in a GTK future.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:23 am
by nixy
Auro Kumar Sahoo wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:33 am
JayM wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:26 am
The performance benefit isn't as huge as it used to, because Plasma is super lean, too.
Oh, really??? That's news to me and to my computers.
Yes, the modern KDE 5.16 is 350 mb Ram with 0-1% CPU at a fresh start or idle state.(as tested on KDE neon and kubuntu minimal)
Xfce usually during 2012 has better and lower memory footprint, but now at 450-500 mb it's more to KDE.
Care to share some screenshots of that Plasma setup which uses 350MB on boot?
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 1:57 pm
by KBD
I do sometimes get the feeling that gnome with gtk3 doesn't really care about a lean desktop or worry about bloat. This could be an issue for a DE like Xfce that is known for being fast and lean. I've seen MATE pick up in ram use as it moved to gtk3. Plasma is is proving how a rather formidable DE can be lean and fast.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 2:03 pm
by KBD
jackdanielsesq wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:07 am
Mine is hot ....
There is simply no comparison - try it, you are a co-conspirator, baby - whether you like it or not
Jack
https://sourceforge.net/projects/mx-kde-iso/files/
JayM wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 7:38 am
They must have improved Plasma a lot since I last used it. Even Adrian's KDE respin is slower than Xfce. I haven't tried Jack Daniel's.
Looking forward to seeing the MX19 based KDE spin :)
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 3:13 pm
by SwampRabbit
In my MX-19 beta VM I have 423MBs with 93 tasks and 124 threads with 1 running according to htop.
I removed Spice agent, cups, and clipit from application autostart.
Running in VirtualBox with drag & drop, clipboard and other VirtualBox things use up at tiny bit memory that wouldn't necessarily be going on a physical install.
gvfs is kinda a hog across the board. Conky uses some that most people could live without.
The one thing about XFCE is that you can it provides all the functionality you really need OOTB, doing basic things doesn't soak up a ton of memory, and honestly I always see memory resources go back down to around 425MBs after closing everything.
Typically don't see over zealous resource usage day to day from things. Its not hard to get XFCE below 400MBs, although time will tell with 4.14.
I am very intrigued to try Jack Daniels KDE spin now though.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:23 pm
by malspa
I never pay any attention to the numbers, but booting into Kubuntu 18.04 with KDE Plasma 5.12.8, running top in Konsole with nothing else opened, it showed me about 340 MiB used. I do keep most of the effects turned off, but not everything. Gotta have the cube, lol.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:46 pm
by Stevo
Well, Phoronix wrote that 4.16 is due in about six months. Maybe it will have more fireworks, but xfce isn't that kind of desktop.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:18 pm
by Auro Kumar Sahoo
nixy wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:23 am
Care to share some screenshots of that Plasma setup which uses 350MB on boot?
My system running MX 18 because of its stability, reliability and usability.
I sometimes test other distribution on VM and don't keep them.
I have tested kde neon and kubuntu 19.04 one/two months earlier, probably on kubuntu 19.04 minimal install I have got this memory footprint of 350-400 mb with 1% cpu usage. But kde neon is very similar too. (In MX because of older KDE plasma it is going to be higher) But you can have latest plasma 5.16 review here:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pla ... eview.html
Note:- I have no problems with xfce in particular, but like mate desktop which once shifted to gtk3, it becomes little more heavy, I assume xfce 4.14.1 will be going to little more heavy on Ram usage after gtk3, and when I tested mx19 b1, from my pendrive I was proved, MX running at 450 mb Ram on fresh startup compare to 300-350 mb of mx18.3. it's nothing to do with MX, but I assume gtk3.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 9:29 am
by manyroads
Stevo wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:46 pm
Well, Phoronix wrote that 4.16 is due in about six months. Maybe it will have more fireworks, but xfce isn't that kind of desktop.
Remember xfce has a reasonably new project leader (Sean Davis:
https://bluesabre.org/tag/xfce/). Also, he picked up the ball from others who allowed the release cycle to take its time.
Now that he has things through a first iteration and this is truly his baby... we'll see how things march forward. btw. He's also the Xubuntu lead.
I plan to continue using Sean's tools (I like the xfce toolset)... but by way of full disclosure; I'm sticking with bspwm as my window manager, for a while. Unlike many here, I love all the scripting, tweaking, building I can do in a tiler like bspwm.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:41 am
by KBD
malspa wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 8:23 pm
I never pay any attention to the numbers, but booting into Kubuntu 18.04 with KDE Plasma 5.12.8, running top in Konsole with nothing else opened, it showed me about 340 MiB used. I do keep most of the effects turned off, but not everything. Gotta have the cube, lol.
That's impressive. On a fresh boot today of MX 18.3 neofetch shows I'm using 539mb ram.
Code: Select all
$ neofetch
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMMMMMMMM viking@mx
MMMMMMMMMMNs..yMMMMMMMMMMMMMm: +NMMMMMMM ---------
MMMMMMMMMN+ :mMMMMMMMMMNo` -dMMMMMMMM OS: MX 18.3 Continuum x86_64
MMMMMMMMMMMs. `oNMMMMMMh- `sNMMMMMMMMM Host: 4291ZDF ThinkPad X220
MMMMMMMMMMMMN/ -hMMMN+ :dMMMMMMMMMMM Kernel: 4.19.0-1-amd64
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMh- +ms. .sMMMMMMMMMMMMM Uptime: 45 secs
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN+` ` +NMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Packages: 2003 (dpkg)
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMNMMd: .dMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM Shell: bash 4.4.12
MMMMMMMMMMMMm/-hMd- `sNMMMMMMMMMMMMM Resolution: 1366x768
MMMMMMMMMMNo` -` :h/ -dMMMMMMMMMMMM DE: Xfce
MMMMMMMMMd: /NMMh- `+NMMMMMMMMMM WM: Xfwm4
MMMMMMMNo` :mMMN+` `-hMMMMMMMM WM Theme: Arc-Dark
MMMMMMh. `oNMMd: `/mMMMMMM Theme: Greybird-mx17 [GTK2]
MMMMm/ -hMd- `sNMMMM Icons: Papirus [GTK2]
MMNs` - :dMMM Terminal: xfce4-terminal
Mm: `oMM Terminal Font: Liberation Mono 11
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM CPU: Intel i5-2520M (4) @ 3.200GHz
GPU: Intel 2nd Generation Core Processor Family
Memory: 539MiB / 7861MiB
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 11:29 am
by malspa
KBD wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 10:41 am
That's impressive.
To me it was very surprising. Only reason I checked was because of what folks were saying in this thread about KDE. I don't care much about the numbers; I'm good as long as the system doesn't feel too sluggish on whatever hardware I'm running it on.
As Dedoimedo wrote about Xfce 4.14 in conclusion, "The performance benefit isn't as huge as it used to [be], because Plasma is super lean, too." That does seem to be true. Also, he ended with these words: "To be continued." I have to assume that he'll be doing a more in-depth piece later.
I haven't seen much difference between Xfce 4.14 in Arch and 4.12 in Debian, other than the newer version having more configuration options. Nothing really to get all excited about, and I think that was Dedoimedo's main point.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:24 pm
by Richard
MX-19b1 with Xfce-4.14
is basically Xfce4-RC on MX-19-b1.
IMHO, it's just a curiosity piece
on how is MX doing
with the new Xfce4 release?
Will MX19 fix what's fixable in Xfce4/gtk3?
What problems now?
Will they be fixed in MX-19?
And, like all writers, he has to write something. :)
And he is a vocal beta tester with a platform.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 12:31 pm
by asqwerth
He's writing about Manjaro, though.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:28 pm
by baldyeti
I find it disingenuous to blame the XFCE developers for delivering exactly what they had promised: a GTK2-free DE mostly unaltered feature-wise (save for a couple welcome enhancements)
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 3:13 pm
by Richard
@asqwerth,
of course you're right, it is about Xfce-4.14.
Probably just my mindset.
Manjaro may be the first to release using 4.14,
so the logical one to trial.
I haven't tried mx19b1 due to lack of bandwidth and no real need to see it. I will take a look but MX18.3 is wonderfully stable, pleasing to my eye and completely adequate for the moment.
I'm sure when I have an opportunity to download the MX19 release I will do so. Upgrading is a hard habit to break. MX Snapshot is a wonderful tool.
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Mon Sep 02, 2019 6:54 pm
by dreamer
baldyeti wrote: Mon Sep 02, 2019 2:28 pm
I find it disingenuous to blame the XFCE developers for delivering exactly what they had promised: a GTK2-free DE mostly unaltered feature-wise (save for a couple welcome enhancements)
Xfce devs did well. No doubt about it. My rant was against GTK devs. I don't care about headerbars, CSDs and Wayland support. I try to avoid all of them. I think CSS theming (if that's a good idea?) and even HiDPI could be implemented by a new theme engine for GTK2.
GTK devs are paid to do their work so they will drag along anyone using their toolkit. It's that or extermination from distros when GTK2 is dropped. Xfce devs saved us (at least those of us using Xfce). I'm thankful. Dedoimedo is less thankful because he is a KDE user and he seems familiar with Windows too (understatement).
Re: Dedoimedo to Xfce 4.14: meh
Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 9:14 am
by nixy
Auro Kumar Sahoo wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 10:18 pm
nixy wrote: Sun Sep 01, 2019 11:23 am
Care to share some screenshots of that Plasma setup which uses 350MB on boot?
My system running MX 18 because of its stability, reliability and usability.
I sometimes test other distribution on VM and don't keep them.
I have tested kde neon and kubuntu 19.04 one/two months earlier, probably on kubuntu 19.04 minimal install I have got this memory footprint of 350-400 mb with 1% cpu usage. But kde neon is very similar too. (In MX because of older KDE plasma it is going to be higher) But you can have latest plasma 5.16 review here:
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pla ... eview.html
Note:- I have no problems with xfce in particular, but like mate desktop which once shifted to gtk3, it becomes little more heavy, I assume xfce 4.14.1 will be going to little more heavy on Ram usage after gtk3, and when I tested mx19 b1, from my pendrive I was proved, MX running at 450 mb Ram on fresh startup compare to 300-350 mb of mx18.3. it's nothing to do with MX, but I assume gtk3.
Minimal install will lower ram consumption, regular installation is still heavier. Xfce 4.14 uses more ram than the previous version but it has screen tearing finally fixed and more other improvements. My MX 19 uses around 400 MB on startup.