Ubuntu KDE

[Larry Grover]

malevolentjelly wrote:
> Now, I'm not sure if I'm entering this thread too late, but what
> originally drew me to linux was that in didn't cost any money. I'm
> running an older Apple Powerbook G3 Pismo, not because I am an apple
> fan at all, but because through a strange opportunity I got this old
> laptop for free. Now, in the good old fashion spirit of not spending a
> horrendous amount of money (I have a blue-collar job, and can't afford
> new-confangled DELL-cheap mb bs), I decided to use linux because you
> can make just about any computer run smoothly with it. From the
> standpoint of someone with inferior, old hardware, I can honestly say
> that KDE seems to run a lot quicker than gnome. I wasn't originally
> drawn to Ubuntu for any moral or usability reason. I just saw it as a
> very well maintained debian tree. I'm using packaged X.org, now that is
> keen. My only gripe has been sluggish gtk2/gnome. Perhaps I don't
> understand gnome or how to customize it. I am not sure, but I had no
> problem gouging out all of KDE's visual effects for a smooth and
> complete desktop environment. Am I the only one using KDE for speed and
> form? I'd use XFCE... but I only have one mouse button... and my pinky
> finger would get tired.


Here's a couple of things you might try to improve the performance of
gnome:

(1) Experiment with different gtk themes.  You may find that some are
less resource intensive.

You can set the gtk theme independent of the rest of the desktop theme
(window decorations and icon themes) by opening the Desktop ->
Preferences -> Theme menu.  In the "Theme Prefences" window, click on
the "Theme Details" button, then select the "Controls" tab.

(2) Select the "reduced_resources" setting for Metacity (the gnome
window manager)

 From the Applications menu, select System Tools -> Configuration
Editor.  Within the Configuration Editor, in the left pane, expand the
"apps" item, then expand the "metacity" item.  Under "metacity" select
the "general" item.  Finally, uncheck the "reduced_resources" key in
the right pane.

I don't know how much of a performance boost you'll get, but maybe 
this will help.

Larry