Is the Linux Desktop Getting Heavier and Slower?

Johan Schinberg writes "Bob Marr wrote an interesting editorial about what many of us have have noticed lately: the three most popular Linux distros are getting "fatter" in terms of their memory footprint and CPU demands for their graphical desktops. Fedora Core 2 isn't usable below 192 MBs of RAM while Mandrake and SuSE aren't very far off similar requirements either. There was a time when Linux users would brag that their favorite OS was far less demanding that Windows, but this doesn't seem to be the case anymore. Modern distros that use the latest versions of KDE and (especially) Gnome feel considerably heavier than before or even than Windows XP/2k3. Sure, Longhorn has higher requirements than XP (256 MB RAM, 800 MHz CPU) and the final version will undoubtly be much more demanding, but that's in 2-3 years from now. For the time being, I am settled with XFce on my Gentoo but I always welcome more carefully-written code."

Comments

Fluxbox

[Avsen]

Personally -- I prefer fluxbox's minimalism. It doesn't really matter what the distros ship with because at least you're given an option on going with a lean option or a feature-ridden one.

Re:Well duh

[Anonymous Coward]

So I guess the term for Linux is "feature-rich" but the equivalent term for Windows is "bloated".

Re:Mainly the startup times...

[tjwhaynes]

I use FC2 on my desktop at work and I'm often irritated by the long startup times for many apps. Although the machine there isn't anything special (P4 2.8Ghz, 384MB Intel onboard video, 40GB HD) it's a bit much to wait around 15-20 seconds for OpenOffice to load (yes, I do increase the memory settings), or 8 seconds for Ethereal (gui). Once things are cached it's not too bad, but still nowhere close to say MS Word's sub-second load time on the same hardware.

And why do you think that MS Word pops up instantly? Think about it - it's a large program split over multiple files, all of which have to be accessed before the program can be run.

Now consider how long it takes to open a New window in OpenOffice.org once it is loaded.

Finished thinking? Good.

At this point, you are hopefully at the right conclusion - MS Word is already mostly loaded when you clicked on it to run. Almost all MS apps preload large sections of the core functionality in a standard install to improve responsiveness once the system is up and running. Alas this approach is also taken by a load of other apps on Windows with the net result that even though the desktop in Windows XP pops up faster on boot than previous iterations of the Windows OS, it can often be a couple of minutes before the hard drive stops popping and thrashing and the system becomes quiescent (and usable).

Real start up times for apps are difficult to gauge even when they aren't preloaded. OpenOffice.org is a slow starter although it is leaps-and-bounds better in version 1.1 than it used to be when it was first released and I hope that the improvements in start time continue . That said, on days when I'm writing a lot of documentation, it gets loaded in the morning once and gets used all day without complaint. If I accidently shut it down, most of the files used are still in the linux file cache and restarting it is a matter of a couple of seconds of turn over.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Re:That's why

[Anonymous Coward]

What an elitist load of crap. There is more to computer use than compiling your kernel over and over. Some of us use our "toys" to create spreadsheets, edit video, etc. Not everything is more efficient from the command prompt.

All in all you make a really crappy salesmen for Linux.

Actually, it's obvious why they're getting bigger.

[xeeno]

Because people keep insisting that they be as friendly and action-packed as a typical windows desktop.
As long as the powers that be insist upon making popular desktops do everything without the need of a shell window, then they are going to be bloated. I don't care how pretty KDE is, it actually irritates me when after a default install of it I have to go hunting through the menus to find the well-hidden shell.

This is what you guys get when you keep preaching that linux is just as friendly as windows so everyone should switch. You get the same kind of bloat windows has.

Re:Well duh

[Moraelin]

And yet, somehow all those "features" on Linux, end up using more memory and requiring more CPU speed than the Windows "bloat". An interesting point of view... to say the least.

The fact is that on my home machine, in Windows 2000, I have more free RAM and faster boot up times _with_ IE loaded (if nothing else as a desktop/file manager), than in KDE _without_ Konqueror loaded.

There are no two ways about it. KDE isn't "feature rich", it's a piece of badly-programmed bloatware. Even if you turned off all the "features", it's still more bloated, slower and less user-friendly than Windows with all of that turned on. (In fact, even than windows with 6 pieces of spyware of your choice.)

Note that so far I'm only talking about KDE, not about Linux in general. Yes, I know, you can run another dektop environment. I'm writing this in XFce myself, so, yeah, I know already.

The problem comes when you need to load any app that's based on KDE. Then all the bloated beast is loaded into RAM. Not only then there goes your machine's RAM, you also get to wait several extra seconds for all that KDE bloat to load. Not "features", but hundreds of megabytes of pure library bloat, which you can't turn off. Whoppee.

Now say a friend tells you to also run some Gnome program. Whether it's Gnomeeting, Evolution or whatever, it doesn't matter. You're now _also_ loading the Gnome libraries in memory, alongside the KDE ones which already were making your machine swap. Whoppe. The RAM and CPU manufacturers must be doing cartwheels for joy by now.

Now also add Mozilla and a few others who can't just be a browser or whatever, they also have to have _yet_ _another_ set of their very own GUI widgets and bloated libraries.

Then edit something in OOo. OOops, yet another case of its own libraries. It can't even freaking use the perfectly good font rendering of X, it just has to come with its own font directory and libraries. And manage to look _worse_ than X's font rendering. (To its defense, though, it's just as retarded under Windows too.)

Well, not to sound only negative, here's my constructive suggestion for the day: if you're going to advocate Linux, might as well get a profit out of it. Buy shares in some memory manufacturer ;)

KDE / GNOME roots

[chrysrobyn]

When I saw GNOME under development, I never thought to myself, "self, now that GNOME thing looks to speed things up". Never once did it even occur to me that all that PrettyFactor would be light on memory or CPU. Is the Linux Desktop getting heavier and slower? If you use GNOME or KDE or any other "user friendly" desktop environment, yes.

I've got a 486/66 at home running a mail / web / name / shell server. He's keeping up pretty well, but I must admit that console dselect takes a minute longer than I would prefer to start up. For his every day tasks, even keeping up with updates, it's more than enough-- so really, this is a question of the GUI end of things.

I wonder how well it would work to introduce one of those reviewers to a very well set up and themed tvtwm2 or whatnot. You know, without all the Kapps or Gapps. I bet the reviewer says it's snappy as a rubber band, but it doesn't do anything (most of those setups don't have any easy to find buttons, you have to click on a blank background to start anything). I think under that environment, Moz, OO, Wine, etc. work, but the plethora of free apps that make Linux interesting to the hobbyist seem to take advantage of the easy to use Glibs and Klibs. The reason for the "bloat" (i.e. heavier and slower) is the added functionality and eye candy.

You can take your lean and mean Linux Desktop, but don't expect it to run all the pretty apps nor expect it to have anti-aliasing and PrettyFactor3.0.

Re:Actually, it's obvious why they're getting bigg

[silicon not in the v]

This is what you guys get when you keep preaching that linux is just as friendly as windows so everyone should switch. You get the same kind of bloat windows has.

WAKE UP! If you read the editorial, you totally did not grasp what he was talking about. It's WAY beyond "the same kind of bloat". It's much worse. Systems that can fly with Win98 or WinNT are barely usable with newer Linux distros. This isn't about being "as bad" as Windows. This is about dropping off the cliff beyond that. It used to be that people not using Linux was because they haven't tried it, or couldn't learn to use it. Now, you're getting people who want to use it, have tried it, and had to abandon it and go back to Windows because their machine couldn't handle Linux. That is the inexusable part.

I'm trying to adapt to Linux, but it's painfully slow. I've got a 300MHz K6-2 with 192MB RAM, but I'm going to have to try a slim window manager because KDE bogs everything down. My complaint is that it seems there aren't many window managers that are in a middle ground. I've looked at several of the smaller window managers, and they seem way too spartan. They're barely better than a straight Xserver. Can't you get wallpaper, desktop icons, a Start menu, and taskbar without the thing sucking resources like a sponge? That right click program menu is a waste of time because you have to minimize the apps you're running to right click for that menu.

Many window managers, few tools

[msobkow]

Err, no. I've used more window managers under various *nix systems over the years than I care to count including Openview, Motif, Openlook, DCE, fvwm2, blackbox, WindowMaker, KDE2, KDE3, and Gnome.

They all run fine if you shut off the extra eye candy, fade/slide effects, transparency, skinning images, etc.

There are no CD player docklets on my desktop, nor midi managers, MP3 rippers, or anything else that wants to periodically check to see if it needs to do anything. If I need it, I'll start the app required at that time.

In other words, modern window managers give you the option of leaving all the glitzy CPU-wasting eye and ear candy enabled, or you can have it fast. Even WindowsXP has the same problem -- you have to shut all the junk off before it'll respond with any kind of speed.

As to memory requirements, I'll just point out that the window managers being compared don't include all the audio and internet hooks that KDE or Gnome do. Modern users expect those hooks, and they take space. Get over it.

Re:Linux on Older PC's

[TimeZone]

Running old distributions is not a great idea. Remember all those security notices that you ignored? Well, they didn't go away. Old (unupdated) Linux distributions make great targets for script kiddies.
TZ

Re:That's why

[pestie]

This is part of why I love Slashdot - we're such a schizophrenic bunch. On the one hand we're pissing and moaning that Linux isn't accepted as a desktop OS, but when someone points out that KDE and Gnome are just as slow as WinXP we're all about command lines and window managers from the late triassic period. Yes, I realize Slashdot is made up of countless individual members, each belonging to various "camps," and that certain stories tend to bring out the loudest and proudest of whatever camps felt most agitated by the article in question. We have, in no particular order:

• The "nobody needs a GUI anyway" elitists
• The "nobody needs anything more than fvwm/twm/WindowMaker" elitists
• The people who wish Linux was more like MacOS, only cheaper
• The people who wish Linux was more like Windows 95/98/2K/XP, only cheaper
• The "I use my computer to do stuff, not just recompile my goddamned kernel" crowd

I could go on, but you get my point. Nobody's ever going to be truly happy, and everyone's going to find something to bitch about, despite the fact that GNU/Linux/*BSD/Open Source/Free Software gives us all a frightening array of options that will allow us geeks to build exactly the operating environment we want. This is our reward for being the "smart kids," and the only thing it costs us is a little time and effort.

Apparently, though, there are some who feel that somehow they're owed this level of flexibility, but with easy, one-click installtion, too, as if the latest installers should simply read our minds and know how we want everything configured. OK, maybe that's not the mindset - what these people actually seem to be thinking is, "my way is clearly best - why can't everyone just make it work like that?" Grow up, people. Seriously.

FWIW, I just installed Mandrake 10 on my 400 Mhz PII (256M RAM, 60G total HD) at home. For the first time I decided to make a real effort to use my Linux box as a desktop system. For the most part I've been extremely successful. The vast majority of what I use my PC for is net-related, and 98% of what I did in WinXP I could do in Linux. I was already using Mozilla as my browser and e-mail client anyway, etc. But there was absolutely no doubt that KDE runs slow as ass on a system of that vintage. I look forward to the day when I can just drop $500 or so on a nice, cheap 3 Ghz system to replace that old dinosaur. But for now I'll continue the experiment and enjoy life in Linux-land, despite the fact that that old machine would run Win98SE a hell of a lot faster than it runs Linux/KDE right now. If I really need to I can fall back to my 1.1 Ghz, 512M RAM Duron running XP.