KDE4 speed impressions.

[Willy K. Hamra]

Dotan Cohen wrote:
>> I hate to feed a rant (8.04->9.04+kde3 thread), but my experience is the same.
>> KDE4 *feels* much slower. I know these things are subjective, but that's what
>> it feels like to me.
>>
> 
> Subjective perceptions are important, nobody sits at the computer with
> a stopwatch.
> 
> 
>> Konqphin is much slower. Scrolling down a list is hard to do. Drag and drop is
>> messy and hit and miss in ways too subtle to describe or screen-shot (hence
>> lack of bug reports from me).
>>
> 
> Konqphin :)
> 
> Please spend some time on the drag / drop problem, to make steps to
> reproduce. I have not noticed any problem, but if you can identify
> where KDE 4 behaviour differs from KDE 3 or from generally accepted
> behaviour, I'd like to hear about it. It is the subtle bugs that make
> the difference between a decent DE and a great one. We are in danger
> of losing those subtle features of KDE 3 that made it so great. It is
> the KDE 3 holdouts like yourself who are perceptive enough to notice
> them.
> 
> 
i agree here too, the *little* things are what matter to the end-user,
we don't notice the HUGE smart engines working in the background to
ensure we get the desired effects in front of us. i have a very decent,
even powerful, computer, but i can't help but notice how dolphin acts as
if struggling to do what i ordered it to do, CPU consumption is not high
at all, memory is very relaxed, dolphin in fact is NOT struggling at
all, but for the eye, it looks as if it is. the dragging is slow, when
selecting few files, it waits a split second to mark them selected,
maybe it's waiting to see if i'll change the selection or reconsider, i
don't know, but this split second wasn't there in KDE3.

>> Windows redraw with visible flickering and shearing. It's better without window
>> effects enabled, but then other stuff goes horribly wrong (like plasma 'holes'
>> and very slow changing between desktops).
>>
> 
> Those are mostly Kubuntu problems, not KDE problems. And the devs are
> ignoring them, as usual. That said, send to me screenshots or
> reproduction instructions and I'll file them.
> 
> 
yes, unfortunately, kubuntu wanted to be the first to use KDE4 and
wanted to be the distro that showcases KDE4, to be the image of KDE4 in
the world of linux, yet, they failed horribly, and all they did was give
KDE a bad bad reputation due to their own problems. most of the
sluggishness and render errors don't exist at all in OpenSUSE with KDE
4.2.4, though if i choose the effect to dim screen with kdesudo windows,
there's a very noticeable glitch on the screen, many lines appear on the
screen and i can remove them with passing a window over them, much like
the screen glitches of windows XP when running on a poor system with an
8 mb vga. i'm guessing these might be nVidia issues, but since i never
used a non-nVidia system with KDE4, i can't tell.
the other issue i have, is the disabling of desktop effects. ok, the
system is blazing faster, but seriously now, it's horrible. and i mean
REAL horrible, maybe horrible is even an understatement, it's FUGLY.
i have spent more than half my time on KDE3 with no desktop effects, no
compiz no nothing, and it was a decent looking DE. in KDE4, disable
effects or any composite manager, and minimize/restore windows, they
just disappear and appear, i hate to say it, but windows 95 minimzed
windows in amuch nicer way than that. then the issue with the
taskmanager and kwin. i already have a bug about it in bugs.kde.org, Bug
187358. just read the couple of comments on it, the last 2 describe it
accurately, and very unreproducable.

>> Kmail is much slower - pausing to popup little boxes I can't turn off. Pausing
>> on every message I click for up to five seconds before it renders and then
>> another pause before I can scroll down and read it.
>>
> 
> I cannot reproduce this. Can you post a screenshot of those little
> boxes? Does the pausing occur on all messages? This sounds serious,
> and Kmail is a flagship application.
> 
> 
>> I am on the 64bit version of Kubuntu -- after years of 32bit. I expected a
>> large speed increase from that alone. I remember running the live CD of Gutsy
>> Gibbon 64 a few years ago and being blown away by the responsiveness of the
>> GUI. Windows moved and resized like glass gliding on silicon! I wanted that
>> kind of zip/zap this time round.
>>
> 
> Oh, no, the 64 bit version is not good. I've tried moving to 64 bit
> every version since Feisty. The problems are mostly confined to video
> problems and speed issues at the moment, which seems to reflect at
> least partially your experiences. What I do is test 64 it, file bugs
> so that the devs could improve it, then use 32 bit for my daily
> driver.
> 
> 
>> So, yes -- I have KDE4.2.x running now. It doesn't suck as hard as the install
>> of Jaunty did. I have tweaked my way around stuff. It's still better than Gnome
>> :) and I really really want the future to catch-up with the recent past.
>>
> 
> You might want to try the KDE 4.2.4 PPA:
> http://www.kubuntu.org/news/kde-4.2.4
> 
> It has lots of enhancements, and only one major regression that I've
> found (Kaddressbook issue, already fixed in Trunk).
> 
> 
> By the way, please CC me on all KDE-complaint threads, so that I won't
> miss them. If you'd really like to help, you can forward to me the
> ones that I do miss. Thanks!
>
i too would like to help, i used to triage in the past, but lack of time
is becoming an issue, though in the little time i have everyday, i would
like to help KDE a bit however i can, i want to see a future for it, the
concept is very beautiful, the underlying system and the plasma system
are very neat, but the bugs are awe full, the memory leaks are even
worse everywhere. it's a HUGE system, with a HUGE database of code, that
has a HUGE potential, and thus, it hurts me to see it in such bad shape.



-- 
Willy K. Hamra
Manager of Hamra Information Systems
Co. Manager of Zeina Computer & Billy Net

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