Cinnamon and KDE - My first impression

[sreesog]

Today I thought of trying the KDE Plasma desktop in Linux Mint in my Laptop. This video helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF7qTzgHv6Y
After installing the plasma desktop I selected the desktop at the login screen and loggedin to the plasma desktop. Uh...! It was ugly, and hell like sluggish! I wanted to logout and delete it then and there! But then too thought of staying bit more. Things I did immediately are -
Went to sytsem settings and in 'Plasma Style' chose 'Breeze Dark'
The touchpad was behaving abnormally and thefore went to "Touchpad settings" and enabled "Tap to click"
With this it was bit ok, but then too outright sluggish and slow. I was wondering how such a stupid thing could be a competitor to stable and fluxible Cinnomon desktop. Then I loggedout back to Cinnomon. Later I found another video which indicated that the baloo file indexer present in the KDE Plasma could be the culprit. File indexing that too in Linux! That is absurd, it is not windows! Uhh! I followed the guidance and not only disabled but also removed baloo file indexer from my machine. This video helped me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B42AmZlfDt8
Now the performance is ok, and I am starting to feel a bit comfortable about KDE Plamsa. But then again to be frank as of now I love Cinnomon! I should say out of the box Cinnomon is well configured, but Plasma is nil configured! And that is a big difference for the newbes!
I am totally new to linux mint as a whole and plasma desktop in perticular. But just like Ubendu for their SNAPs, I am starting to hate KDE for their Neon, from what I read about them. But I just want to be aware and therefore playing with it and learning.

[Portreve]

Well, bear in mind that Linux Mint doesn't ship with KDE, and it may well be other things need to be done to get out to work fully properly.

Also bear in mind that it can be a resource hog (though comparisons if recent versions of KDE and Gnome 3 show it using fewer resources). So, if you really want to experience KDE probably "as it was meant to be" then download KDE Neon and give that a try.

[sreesog]

Well, bear in mind that Linux Mint doesn't ship with KDE, and it may well be other things need to be done to get out to work fully properly.
Also bear in mind that it can be a resource hog (though comparisons if recent versions of KDE and Gnome 3 show it using fewer resources).

Thanks. I keep that in mind.

So, if you really want to experience KDE probably "as it was meant to be" then download KDE Neon and give that a try.

No! I started to dislike Neon, as much as I dislike SNAPs. So no never - I don't plan to go the KDE way. Further as of now I see that out of the box, Unicode support for my local language (Malayalam) is excellent in Cinnomon, I have to figure it out how to get the same in Plasma 5, and I am a noob. But I do see that Plasma 5 is highly configurable, and can be made to look anyway we want. That is cool. But anyway I am an or perfer to be an LMDE Cinnomon user.

[Moonstone Man]

Also bear in mind that it can be a resource hog (though comparisons if recent versions of KDE and Gnome 3 show it using fewer resources).

I think you might need to update your sources. Plasma is very low on resources and it's fast. I have the latest neon here on one machine and plasmashell is running at 442.6MB, which is slightly above what Firefox is sucking with only two open tabs.

As an aside, the slowness could simply be a result of the OP having created a Frankenstein.

[sreesog]

OK. Thanks. I will check.
Note: By the way I think the KDE sluggishness is there with every machine that uses the old HDD, and probably the Baloo indexer is the culprit.

[Moonstone Man]

... probably the Baloo indexer is the culprit.

Good catch though it would only be a problem for a short while.

[Portreve]

I think you might need to update your sources. Plasma is very low on resources and it's fast. I have the latest neon here on one machine and plasmashell is running at 442.6MB, which is slightly above what Firefox is sucking with only two open tabs.

I remember there being an article (written, video, don't remember any more) from a reliable source that system resource usage for KDE has essentially plummeted, vs. what it used to be. That's to what I was referring. I assume the folks at the KDE project have continued on that trajectory.

In retrospect, I think I should have phrased my initial comment differently. Classically, KDE was a resource hog. In recent times, some major strides have been made which have made its system resource utilization come in line with other desktop environments. That's the way I should have written it.

However, if its system resource demands are now in the range of a single program, then holy crap. As I re-read the thread and write this response post, I'm actually downloading an ISO of the user edition of Neon to check out the current experience.

OK. Thanks. I will check.
Note: By the way I think the KDE sluggishness is there with every machine that uses the old HDD, and probably the Baloo indexer is the culprit.

Yeah, HDDs really kill the **** out of any system's performance. It's absolutely insane. Get yourself an SSD for it (as long as the system isn't so old that it doesn't offer SATA) and sit back and enjoy the massive jump in performance.

A number of years ago now, I replaced the HDD in my MacBook Pro with an SSD (back when it was still my main system) and the performance difference in LM was just absolutely day and night.

[sreesog]

Yeah, HDDs really kill the **** out of any system's performance. It's absolutely insane. Get yourself an SSD for it (as long as the system isn't so old that it doesn't offer SATA) and sit back and enjoy the massive jump in performance.
A number of years ago now, I replaced the HDD in my MacBook Pro with an SSD (back when it was still my main system) and the performance difference in LM was just absolutely day and night.

Thanks, I will.

[Moonstone Man]

In retrospect, I think I should have phrased my initial comment differently. Classically, KDE was a resource hog. In recent times, some major strides have been made which have made its system resource utilization come in line with other desktop environments. That's the way I should have written it.

No need to kick yourself

KDE was a complete resource hog, yes, with emphasis on 'was'. Since Plasma replaced KDE4, there have been continuing improvements. I did some experiments not too long back to see what was faster, xfce or Plasma, because I like speed of responsiveness. To the human eye, Plasma seemed faster. Completely unscientific of course, but had xfce been visibly faster I would have moved to it.

However, if its system resource demands are now in the range of a single program, then holy crap. As I re-read the thread and write this response post, I'm actually downloading an ISO of the user edition of Neon to check out the current experience.

The entire OS and DE consumes under 1GB of RAM on boot:

[BrianI]

I find Mint 20.1 Cinnamon logs in in at ~650mb on idle after logging in.

KDE is impressively flexible, and light weight in terms of memory usage. I haven't found it particularly stable though. And I find KDE Plasma quite "fiddly", with endless settings for setting the options of the options for the settings for the settings of options.

[JosephM]

I find Mint 20.1 Cinnamon logs in in at ~650mb on idle after logging in.

I hope you mean for the entire system and not for Cinnamon itself. Cinnamon itself really shouldn't be that high.

As for KDE I try it every once in awhile and find the performance really good. For me it's just a personal dislike of the look and feel and the fact that configuring it is way too much. I don't need or want all those settings. I know some love them, just not me. I'll take just the settings I need and a good out of the box setup any day.

[BrianI]

I find Mint 20.1 Cinnamon logs in in at ~650mb on idle after logging in.

I hope you mean for the entire system and not for Cinnamon itself. Cinnamon itself really shouldn't be that high.

As for KDE I try it every once in awhile and find the performance really good. For me it's just a personal dislike of the look and feel and the fact that configuring it is way too much. I don't need or want all those settings. I know some love them, just not me. I'll take just the settings I need and a good out of the box setup any day.

Yes, I mean ~650 mb in use for the entire system on login, as displayed by neofetch.

[rossdv8]

Good catch though it would only be a problem for a short while.

In my experience (years of KDE) It can be a problem for quite a long time. And often.

Baloo does a great job of indexing. However it often does its great job of indexing at the most inconvenient times, causing sluggish behaviour and creating the impression that KDE / Plasma is a lousy desktop.

Getting rid of Baloo (just like getting rid of Xapian and the other indexing programs run in Cinnamon, Mate and Xfce) will result in a longer time to display things like thumbnail previews in File Manager Directories (Folders) and also slow down searches for text strings or file names.

The performance enhancement in everyday use on the other hand is usually startling.

[Hoser Rob]

... KDE was a complete resource hog, yes, with emphasis on 'was'. Since Plasma replaced KDE4, there have been continuing improvements. I did some experiments not too long back to see what was faster, xfce or Plasma, because I like speed of responsiveness. To the human eye, Plasma seemed faster. Completely unscientific of course, but had xfce been visibly faster I would have moved to it....

That's actually my experience too, I use Xfce on my little netbook and Plasma 5 on my laptop. I can't see much difference in speed and Plasma uses about the same amount of RAM. Of course that's not just a result of some nice code pruning/optimization with KDE, Xfce just isn't the light and fast DE it used to be. ANd it seems to get slower with every new Xfce version I use.

Unfortunately since Mint doesn't support KDE anymore I'm going to try a few other KDE spins in ther next few days. MX first. Gonna have to do this, 18.3 is EOL the middle of next week or so.

Personally I think every other Linux DE I've tried seems a bit amateurish next to KDE.

[Hoser Rob]

... After installing the plasma desktop I selected the desktop at the login screen and loggedin to the plasma desktop. Uh...! It was ugly, and hell like sluggish! I wanted to logout and delete it then and there! ...

The trouble with this is that you installed multiple DEs, which has a bad habit of causing strange and hard to diagnose problems. So I don't think these sort of comparisons are valid.

I agree about baloo file indexing, it's the 2nd thing I turn off in a new KDE install. However, for some people (eg in an offfice) it makes sense. You'd be working with a lot of files, and something like this will speed you up more than it slows the computer down. But it doesn't work for my use.

The 1st thing I get rid of is that silly bouncing ball icon. Just how much launch feedback do you need?

[rickNS]

My KDE on Arch = 474 Mib.

Someone above didn't like the look of KDE, I quite like it myself, esp the blue glow on active window.

EDIT; it looks better when you see it all.

[rossdv8]

Someone above didn't like the look of KDE, I quite like it myself, esp the blue glow on active window.

Something similar to that blue glow around the active window can be turned on and off in Xfce.
I had a sort of Neon green around mine for a while, but it is a Dark Grey at present.
I'll qhickly swap it to a Blue.. and grab a screen shot
I hate the skinny little borders around windows on most current desktops, so I add that 'glow' (In Xfce using Compiz it is a Drop Shadow) around them because it makes the border thicker and easier to grab for resizing.

(Dolphin File Manager in Mint 20.1 Xfce)

Screenshot_2021-03-27_10-07-24.png (129.67 KiB) Viewed 3659 times

Maybe not quite KDE, but it is amazing how many of the old KDE toys play nicely in Xfce

The Coloured Drop Shadow is easily set in Compiz under Effects > Window Decoration > Active Shadow