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Why KDE Plasma Makes Sense For Linux Gaming
sfcrazy writes "Martin Gräßlin, a lead KDE developer, addresses some queries around a topic bugging Gnome and Unity users — the fallback mode. In this post he says that 'having the non-composited mode around allows us to do things like turning compositing off when running games or heavy OpenGL based applications such as Blender. So if you want to get some of the now finally available games for Linux, KDE Plasma should be your primary choice to enjoy the game. I have also heard of users switching to KDE Plasma because we still provide non OpenGL based setups.'"
I much prefer the simplicity and conservatism of XFCE4. Can optionally use compositing too and no need to relearn interface.
Tomorrow is another day...
I just switched to KDE because the developers aren't against the idea of me configuring and theming it as I please. It's also faster. Games are now an added bonus.
A week or two ago I tested LXDE and KDE to see which one would run the best with the new Serious Sam and Unigine. With the Nvidia 304 driver, LXDE was always slower than KDE with or without compositing. This issue went away with the Nvidia 310 driver, LXDE and KDE without compositing were just about the same speed.
I have no idea what caused the slowdown, however it shows that the game's FPS does not necessarily improve with a "light" DE. Compositing however made a difference.
There are other DEs/WMs out there. XFCE, LXDE if you want a somewhat complete DE, WindowLab if you want something minimal but like your mouse, i3 if you like tiling (or xmonad if you swing that way).
KDE's sure to use more memory than some of the other competition, and if you're like me and only have 2GB of RAM in your primary machine, that's important.
For those who don't know, compositing is when you throw your food scraps and lawn clippings in the green bin.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Xfce allows the user to switch off compositing in the settings GUI or, more usefully for scripts and launchers, with a command:
Compositing off: "xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p /general/use_compositing -t bool -s false" /general/use_compositing -t bool -s true"
Compositing on: "xfconf-query -c xfwm4 -p
A KDE dev pretending that Gnome 3 or Unity are the only other options makes him seem slightly desperate way.
Exactly. The interface for a less complicated device (a car) should be different from the interface for a more complicated device (jet airplane).
You hope that you are in a place where you can use Siri and that Siri understands what you are saying.
And don't forget the web sites that just suck on a mobile device. Like when you have to scroll and scroll and scroll left to read something.
They are designed for consumption of media. Not for production of anything.
I know there will be people who claim that they use their mobile device for writing thousands of lines of code and composing spreadsheets and documents but even if they are real they are the minority.
I think that most people will love their mobile devices for media consumption and many people will like the same interface for their desktop/laptop because that is the way they work (full-screen apps possibly layered over each other but only one being interacted with at any time).
But for me, I want my stupid "Start" button or equivalent. I don't want to have to remember the name of an app to launch it. I want to build the menu tree the way I want to use it.
>Last time I looked they were transparently rendered and cached as bitmaps anyway.
When was this, in the 3x days?
Open dolphin. Grab the slider. Watch as the icons in Dolphin magically resize as you move the slider back and forth at to completely arbitrary sizes that aren't limited to powers of 2.
Go back to 4chan /g/.
--
BMO
Never tried on W8, but surely you're aware of http://windows.kde.org/?
I'm starting to think GNU is the problem with "GNU/Linux" these days.
of course they're "transparently rendered and cached as bitmaps", in different sizes. doing it any other way makes no sense, directly keeping rendering the svg to screen makes no sense at all as aproach to blitting something that doesn't change to the screen.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Kubuntu 12.10 seems a good option for you if you're used to Ubuntu and debian world. But for me, openSUSE 12.2 is the best KDE distro out there. Robust, professional looking, tons of applications, obs (opensuse Build Service), good community... And the new theme for openSUSE 12.3 in KDE looks even better.. http://www.dennogumi.org/2012/11/new-theme-for-opensuse-12-3-is-now-in
startx -- :1
Assuming you're happy to use the locally connected display, and your local X server isn't running on :1. startx -- makes all the opts on the right-hand-side of the -- get passed on to X binary verbatim. See man X
The easy way was previously replied, the robust way is this:
change etc/init/tty4.conf to something like this:
start on runlevel [2345] /bin/openvt -f -w -c 4 -- su - -- username -l -c "/usr/bin/startx -- :4 -config xorg.conf -layout DefaultLayout -depth 24 -dpi 96 -nolisten tcp vt10"
stop on runlevel [!2345]
emits starting-tty4
script
# startx -- -logverbose 6
exec
end script
Above will start X using a specific conf, layout, dpi, ... Then use home/username/.xinitrc to launch and manipulate the desired app:
aTTY=`/usr/bin/tty`; /path/to/script/or/app >> $INITRC_LOG 3>&1 /bin/chvt 10
elif [ "$aTTY" = "/dev/tty4" ]; then
XINITRC_LOG="/var/log/tty4.log"
exec ck-launch-session dbus-launch --sh-syntax --exit-with-session
sleep(2)
Note: this is also a good place to use xrandr or other window manipulation tools
To start the whole thing just do
initctl start tty4
from any ol' place
Hope this helps
resist propaganda