Hi

I'm new to KDE, Linux etc ... does anyone know, does the desktop widgets, panels, launchers etc ... consume a lot of memory cpu etc resources? And creating extra workspaces/"activities" ... does that also consume a lot or resources ... or not?
I'm just wondering how conservative I should be on them as I have an old-ish dell laptop, not with very high specs. I want to do graphic work ... Krita etc, but conserned too many desktop widgets etc and virtual desktops/workspaces might not produce the best out come ... or maybe I have nothing to be concerned about, thus asking here ...

Basic specs:
Operating System: Kubuntu 20.04
KDE Plasma Version: 5.18.5
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.68.0
Qt Version: 5.12.8
Kernel Version: 5.4.0-42-lowlatency
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-2630QM CPU @ 2.00GHz
Memory: 7,7 GiB of RAM

A basic stock Plasma desktop is pretty lean. Adding widgets can of course increase resources, but that probably depends on what the widget does. I do not believe that the panels and most widgets should cause much if any concern.

Virtual desktops also iirc will not hog too many resources.
Desktop Activities, which have unique layouts, backgrounds, widgets, etc *can* be a bit resource hungry, BUT you are able to turnm them off and on as you need them. This is what I did on a low ram, super slow Atom CPU 10" laptop.


I think with your i7 and your amount of ram, you should be fine.

Desktop Activities, which have unique layouts, backgrounds, widgets, etc *can* be a bit resource hungry, BUT you are able to turnm them off and on as you need them. This is what I did on a low ram, super slow Atom CPU 10" laptop.

Hi Clay, thanks for feedback.

Is there a way to "turn them off" without deleting them? Cause deleting them would mean I'd have to start from scratch putting them together again
To just temporally turn them off would be great, I'm just not sure how to do it.

razorrob wrote:

Desktop Activities, which have unique layouts, backgrounds, widgets, etc *can* be a bit resource hungry, BUT you are able to turnm them off and on as you need them. This is what I did on a low ram, super slow Atom CPU 10" laptop.

Hi Clay, thanks for feedback.

Is there a way to "turn them off" without deleting them? Cause deleting them would mean I'd have to start from scratch putting them together again
To just temporally turn them off would be great, I'm just not sure how to do it.

That is exactly how they work There will be a button on each activity shown in the Activity Manager to close them, should be on the bottom right corner of the item. To turn one back on, just click the name.

claydoh wrote:That is exactly how they work There will be a button on each activity shown in the Activity Manager to close them, should be on the bottom right corner of the item. To turn one back on, just click the name.

Aha! Didn't realize that, super thanks