I have tried several KDE distributions now on both of my main computers (a Celeron M520 laptop and an Atom N270 netbook). The distribution of performance vs. KDE version looks like this...

KDE 4.3.x (Scientific Linux): Fast to start, fast to run, stable... No complaints.

KDE 4.4.x (Debian), 4.5.x (Salix/Slackware): Twice as slow to start, but still fast enough to run. Some programs crash sometimes.

4.6.x (Kubuntu), 4.7.x (OpenSuSE): Slower to start and slower to run than 4.5.x. Usable, but annoying to use. Also, more program crashes than before.

4.8.x (Chakra): Exceedingly slow to start, and runs much slower than prior versions - Plasma and KWin are much less responsive. Furthermore the outline move/resize option for KWin has been flat-out removed, which means you can only skip resize shenanigans by enabling the compositing manager (which is too resource intensive for low-end video cards). Programs crashing up the wazoo, too!

As for other desktop environments:
- Xfce is good, but lacks features and probably business-related functionality
- Gnome 3 is a flashy toy that almost everyone seems to hate (I certainly hate it)
- Unity is even flashier and more toy-like than Gnome 3
- There seems to be more division, duplication of effort, and wasting of manpower in the Linux community than ever before

Meanwhile Windows 7 is kicking your collective behinds in performance. It boots in 30 seconds out of the box, and if I turn off all the eyecandy it performs on par with Linux + Xfce on my netbook. Whereas if I turn off all the eyecandy in KDE... Oh wait I can't do that, thanks to Plasma.

What the heck. You're the developers. What you do is your prerogative, not mine; and I am in fact quite thankful that you created this desktop environment, and continue to maintain it... I just wish it didn't make my hardware seem prematurely obsolete.

I am not sure your comparison is a good one, as you are comparing different distributions with different KDE versions.

Every distribution does customize KDE more or less heavily so you should at least compare differences in KDE version starts on the same distribution.

Also all comparisons should be done with an empty $HOME/.kde/ (or $HOME/.kde4/ for some distributions), on the same computer with exactly the same presets as for automatically loaded applications and services on start up for every KDE version.

Then it is something we can really judge it, else it is merely comparing apples with oranges.

FWIW: I use KDE 4.8.1 on Kubuntu 12.04 beta 1 and it certainly starts much faster than Windows 7 (up-to-date as of last Sunday) on the same laptop, start up time measured from the grub2 screen til a browser opens. But that again is quite flawed as Windows 7 doesn't start the same services as my Linux installation does, it actually starts less AFAIK, which means I also compared apples with oranges

Out of curiosity, does the laptop have an SSD?

No My old laptop has one, but not this one.

In that case I am at a loss to explain the difference between our experiences with KDE. I have never, ever seen any KDE distro boot faster than Windows 7, under any circumstances.

I do notice (at least when it doesn't do an fsck) that systemd based systems do seem to reach the login screen fairly quickly (on my non-SSD system, I would guess at ~15 seconds).

As this is a laptop, I don't have automatic login enabled, but once I login it usually only takes ~10 seconds to get to the desktop. I have quite a few apps set to autostart as well (Kopete, Quassel, Akregator, Juk).

I rarely have crashes however. It would be interesting to see the crash reports - I suspect some root cause is at fault here. You might be affected by the LD_BIND_NOW issue.

As for the KWin/Plasma issues - blame the drivers, they still need work unfortunately - especially if you have an Ati card. On my Intel (i5 Ironlake) system it rarely has problems (if I haven't used the window switcher, it does pause for a second as it loads it, but once it has it is smooth).

Sadly both my main computers have the same Intel 945 graphics, and are not even close to a Core2 i5 in terms of processing power.

(I also have a Powerbook G4 with an ATI video card. The KDE situation on that is miserable - windows do not resize haltingly, so much as they do not resize at all until several seconds after you stop dragging them. Xfce, on the other hand, works pretty well on the Powerbook.)

http://razor-qt.org/ - lightweight and qt

toad wrote:http://razor-qt.org/ - lightweight and qt

razor-qt is a really interesting project with a brilliant future. I'm following it with interests: Lots of good ideas (some of them taken from KDE itself) and very lightweight... but it is on an early stage of development. It is quite usable and I think it deserves more users and people interacting with the project, but IMO it can't be used as main desktop yet.

toad wrote:http://razor-qt.org/ - lightweight and qt

+1. I am excited by this project and look forward to hearing more about it.

I see things have been going smoothly since my last post 4 years ago (lol)

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=7466

Since Gnome 3 has gone the way of KDE (ie, the UI designers went nuts) I have found salvation in Linux Mint-LXDE ; it is fast, easy to configure and use, and just works.

While Mint is a great distro and XFCE a very good desktop I cannot share the OP's concern about KDE - it has behaved extremely well over the years (and I got into it straight from 4.0). Granted, there were a couple of hiccups along the way but since 4.3 (and without the PIM suite) I've been more than satisfied by a great desktop with fantastic options afforded by no other DE

Still, everyone should go for that which suits him or her...

I've tried Razor-Qt. It crashes quite a lot, and is barely even on par with LXDE for features. It is also slower than either LXDE or Xfce.

That said, I kind of like the idea. I just wish it wasn't so heavy and slow and unstable.