I'm talking about the plasmoid (which after examining his screenshot I realize he's not running; my apologies). Every time I stick the plasmoid on my desktop it runs fine for awhile, then after a couple of hours CPU usage spikes and the system noticably slows. I remove the plasmoid and the problem goes away instantly. It's done that to me ever since KDE 4.3, and I've never taken the time to figure out why.

I have no idea why his CPU usage is so high; mine isn't anything like that bad.

I for one am completely pleased with the direction of KDE4. I was hesitant at first but the more I played with it the happier I have been. I think it will just get better and better.

I don't see what the fuss is about Dolphin. I don't seem to have complaints about it. Am I missing something? It does what I ask of it...so far anyway. It is still sort of new to me insofar as I mostly used Gnome (having come from the "brown light" as Alien Bob quipped) prior to Slackware...

As for Igadoter I am baffled why someone insists (and will not let it die...ever apparently) that an unmaintained KDE3 remain in Slackware but as mentioned above the /ignore works...

I just typed an almost-finished reply and then my power went out, and I lost the whole thing. :/ Isn't life grand. If only I was using vim or something with autosave. I apologize if I sound snarkier than I intend -- the original post was fairly mellow but I don't enjoy typing it out again.

enorbet seems to be on KDE4's payroll while igadoter seems to be on KDE3.5's (or anti-KDE4's at least). I don't understand this thread at all. enorbet, you seem hell bent on insisting that KDE4 is right for everyone. It's a nice DE but it isn't for everyone in terms of both resource usage and functionality. Certainly KDE4 is getting better with each release, but there have been posts and threads about that very subject before, and this just appears to be another one with a much higher level of insistence that everyone must be content with KDE4 as it stands or as it will stand, lest they be burned at the stake. igadoter, you seem hell bent on insisting that KDE4 isn't right for anyone, and that we all must stand behind KDE3.5 (even though it is officially abandoned and will have increasing trouble keeping up with the times, especially when HAL is removed as a system requirement in the future) lest we be shot out of a cannon. Neither attitude is helpful, though perhaps the former is ultimately more productive than the latter since, as it stands, no one is doing anything to change the situation of the latter. igadoter, again, if you insist on denouncing anything other than KDE3.5, whining is unproductive and the only thing you can do is hike up your trousers and crawl through the mud trying to fix it up and get it working in Slackware. This will get more and more difficult as the team remains small and the underpinnings of GNU/Linux continue to change, but if you refuse to adapt you must be prepared to react.

KDE4 exploits the latest in bleeding edge hardware capability, making it a nice experience when it works, and a horrible or half-baked one when it doesn't. It's getting better and I don't fault the KDE devs (especially since most of the problems remain on the side of the graphics drivers), but in some cases being more reserved can be appropriate. I actually have no problem with Strigi/nepomuk/akonadi...I've never had any problems with any of them and I've never noticed any significant RAM/CPU usage for them either (apart from a fresh installation, but even then it seems to run at a low enough priority to allow me to get other things done). Whether or not they are useful is subjective, and certainly a few years ago I was looking for a good file indexing solution, but I've been kind of put off by the idea and don't really require them at this point (though I don't object to their inclusion). Overall, KDE4 is improving with each release, but it remains immensely more complex and resource-intensive than some other WMs/DEs and certainly it does not remain bug-free.

enorbet, I use xmonad with a dzen2 status bar. In terms of CPU usage, the only process that registers in `ps` output is a script piping information to my dzen2 status bar, which is using 0.1% of my CPU. The only other processes registering any non-negligible (non-zero) CPU activity are X and firefox, which would remain constant in any WM/DE. In terms of RAM usage, the only component of my WM that registers any non-zero RAM usage is xmonad itself at 0.1%, which on my machine is just under 4 MB of RAM. The only other processes that register are X and third-party apps, which again would remain constant. KDE4 is decidedly more resource intensive than my setup. That being said, performance-wise, any difference between xmonad and KDE4 would be negligible on this hardware, and it is only when you really start limiting your available resources that there will exist a noticeable difference between the two. However, your insistence on KDE4 being lightweight is silly; it may not be using 50% of the CPU/RAM, but it is still certainly using more than many other window managers/desktop environments. And your quip about XFCE not being able to do what is in your screenshot -- with compiz you have been able to do exactly that (get an expose-like overview of your desktops) in any DE for quite a long time (I dare say before KDE4 was released), and in fact, you could run more applications simultaneously should the need arise because the WM/DE is using less to begin with. We get it, you love KDE4. You must get it through your head that your opinion is not and must not be identical to everyone else's.

The fuss about Dolphin is that it doesn't feature half of the functionality of Konqueror, which was the default in KDE 3.x. Fortunately Konqueror is still installed and it's easy enough to change the file manager under Default Applications in the System Settings dialog. I'll never understand why the switch, though... less features is never better. I do understand that as a Gnome refuge Dolphin probably looks pretty good to you after Nautilus.

One theme I've been hearing quite a bit both here and elsewhere is "if you don't like KDE 4.x use Xfce". I don't think that recommendation is entirely fair. Fact is, if you loved KDE 3.x and hate KDE 4.x you're screwed; there isn't another desktop environment out there that offers anything even approaching KDE's level of user configurability. I've tried both Xfce and Gnome on multiple occasions and always come away frustrated, so I understand, to a point, the frustration of those who unlike me were unable to make a smooth transition from KDe 3.x to KDE 4.x. The truth is that there's really nothing out there for them.

Still I want my Automake support back on KDevelop4-5-6-7-8-9... I don't care about desktop effects or CPU usage.

Greetz
Either I am choosing words that are overly exuberant at finding out (finally) that KDE isn't the POS I thought it was at first and/or you are taking 2 feet and rounding it off to a yard (0.6M to 1M?). Admittedly I am insisting that it has value and should not be written off as a gaudy, bloated toy, but I don't see anywhere that I have preached that anyone not using it to the exclusion of all else is doomed to perdition. I don't even subscribe to that myself.

Almost daily I work in Window Maker and E17. Probably once a month for a day I am in Fluxbox and that is on this one box. I have am old laptop that has KDE and some Gnome on it for the apps but the DE is E17. BTW that old laptop also is a dual boot machine that still has OS/2 4.5 with some ECS updated libraries on it. in Warp I can switch from the WPS to Enlightenment E16. I have an old Desktop with FreeDOS on it so I am not one to "nest and set up shop".

Furthermore, I do PC repair and recovery work and I look down my nose at those so-called techs who want to setup everybody's PC just like theirs. I figure it's one of two things. Either they never consider what the client needs or wants or only know one way. I just don't think that way. So if I came off as one dimensional, I apologize, I just get tired of threads and posts that devolve into "Chevy Good...Ford Bad" and try to promote that both have their pros and cons and especially where all it costs is time and effort, why not have 'em all?

Almost there.

Well, I installed Alien Bob's kde 4.5.95, packages (Thank You) and have been running it for the last few hours. At first, with the Evil Triplets fuctional it was the usual disaster with 99% cpu usage, with 379 processes and 467 megs to run a bare default desktop. BTW, I deleted the .kde and .config/kde files before installing kde 4.5.95.

By removing (removepkg) akondai (whatever) and disabling the other two, the cpu usage dropped to 5-9%, 241 processes and 227 megs to run the default desktop. See attached image.

I guess I've been looking my Xfce desktop for too long, since when the kde desktop first came up I thought it looked pretty good and it did, but when, after a few hours, I went back to Xfce to check the memory usage, I can now honestly say the Xfce desktop, at least as I have setup, looks every bit as good as the kde desktop. Of course, the kde desktop has all the cute desktop effects, but I rarely use them and could care less. So, while there was a weak moment of thinking of using kde, I came to my sense and will remain with Xfce. It does everything I need to do and kde doesn't do anything, that I can see, that warrants the additional resources it uses (besides looking "pretty" ).

Attached Thumbnails

 

If you let it run it's course that will eventually calm down. It's busy indexing.

Yes, I know that. I waited 15 minutes or so, before running Gkrellm.

BTW, Xfce from a cold start with the calendar/clock plug-in, the weather plug-in, wicd and Gkellm running
it took 0-1% of cpu usage, 246 processes and 150 megs of ram. With vidalia/tor/polipo and thunderbird
fired up it still was only using 222 megs,