Hi! I'm new and I hope this is the right place for this post.

I've been using Linux Cinnamon for months with no complaints. The other day I hopped over to Arch Linux with KDE Plasma. I had also tried KDE on Linux Mint (although it's not officially supported).

Now, both on Mint and on Arch, with Plasma the fan is bound to start very soon and restart frequently, and for good reason. Even with very reasonable usage: browsing, not even necessarily watching videos. KDE goes from very usable to snappy for my standard, it's never slow. Yesterday, though, at some point it even froze---I suspect because of temperature (which I've never checked).

My hardware is as follows:

Lenovo Z51-70
CPU: intel core i7 @ 2.40 GHz
RAM: 16 gb
Hard disk (not SSD): about 400 gb out of more than twice as much (dual boot with Win 10)
GPU: the output of

Code: Select all

sudo lshw -numeric -C display

is

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 *-display                 
       description: VGA compatible controller
       product: HD Graphics 5500 [8086:1616]
       vendor: Intel Corporation [8086]
       physical id: 2
       bus info: pci@0000:00:02.0
       version: 09
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: msi pm vga_controller bus_master cap_list
       configuration: driver=i915 latency=0
       resources: irq:51 memory:d0000000-d0ffffff memory:c0000000-cfffffff ioport:5000(size=64) memory:c0000-dffff
  *-display
       description: Display controller
       product: Venus XTX [Radeon HD 8890M / R9 M275X/M375X] [1002:6820]
       vendor: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] [1002]
       physical id: 0
       bus info: pci@0000:04:00.0
       version: 81
       width: 64 bits
       clock: 33MHz
       capabilities: pm pciexpress msi bus_master cap_list rom
       configuration: driver=radeon latency=0
       resources: irq:53 memory:b0000000-bfffffff memory:d1000000-d103ffff ioport:3000(size=256) memory:d1040000-d105ffff


I don't believe I have a hardware problem. Mint Cinnamon used to boot in about 60 seconds, and Arch in about 40. Again, it's never slow, and it doesn't become slow, but presumably it heats up for what seems like bare minimum usage. I could have an SSD, but I've read of people using KDE on much worse hardware... On Mint Cinnamon I think I could go days without hearing the fan... I had to do something special like installing or possibly aggressive Youtube watching.

I'm going to chicken out of Arch Linux for other reasons. I don't know if I should go Kubuntu or OpenSuse with KDE (I think I like KDE), or just be content with Mint XFCE (which might be an even better compromise than Cinnamon on this laptop) or maybe Zorin OS Lite (also XFCE).

It seems like my laptop is answering this question for me: a textbook case of using an OS or DE with inadequate hardware. Except that it looks like people are running KDE on worse hardware---certainly less RAM, for instance. I couldn't do that---just put up with the fan. The pc has frozen once already, and I'm sure I'd fry my hw if I didn't take action.

Oh, and I've read that "blur" and "translucency" can be taxing for hardware, and I've switched them off. Could it be that I need some drivers or something? Though as I've said I had no problems with Mint Cinnamon. I should say I've also been giving Gnome a go on Arch. I haven't used it much, but as with KDE it is quite responsive and the fan turns on more often than with LMC, but possibly less than with KDE. I haven't used it much, though.

Thanks if you've read thus far! Do you think you can help me? If you need me to perform additional checks, please don't be cryptic as I'm no power user.

Filippo

Well, I noticed that Plasma was also quite hard on my battery, so I've moved on to OpenSuse Leap with XFCE. Case closed, as far as I'm concerned. Thanks anyway.