Q4OS Forum

Manessa

Member

Registered: 2023-12-29

Posts: 27

about KDE

Hello everyone. I've been using Trinity for a long time, but I have a questiHow good it feels  KDE Usually KDE is a difficult working environment. What is your experience of using KDE on old computers? I already wrote about my configuration and RAM in two of my questions

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 519

Re: about KDE

You can install Plasma side-by-side with Trinity to give it a try (Profile Manager in Q4OS Welcome Screen).
I am using Plasma flawlessly on two old computers too (see configs in my signature, worked also very well before doubling the RAM in each one).

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

EBAL

Member

Registered: 2024-02-13

Posts: 8

Re: about KDE

@hchiper: on your laptop with 4GB RAM, what is the amount of memory used by Plasma after booting-up? Are you using latest Plasma 5.x?

I have an Asus Chromebox with 4GB RAM and installed latest Q4OS with KDE 5.27. I selected the "Live Media" install option to be as barebone as possible. I'm seeing around 600MB after booting-up. I was hoping to see around 350 to 400MB just like when I installed Bodhi Linux on this device but didn't like the Moksha DE. I also don't like the Trinity DE but I like Plasma.

The device is used for Netflix and YouTube (using FreeTube) running them at the same time. Any suggestions to lower the start-up memory usage? What background services can I turn-off that are not essential?

Thanks!

hchiper

Member

From: Belgium

Registered: 2020-07-28

Posts: 519

Re: about KDE

@hchiper: on your laptop with 4GB RAM, what is the amount of memory used by Plasma after booting-up? Are you using latest Plasma 5.x?

540 MB, Plasma 5.20.5

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Q4OS machine: Samsung R519 - Pentium T4200 2.0 GHz - 4 GB RAM - 500 GB SSD

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: about KDE

I selected the "Live Media" install option to be as barebone as possible.

The live option is not as "barebone". The basic option would be even lighter. The "pure" option is "as barebone as possible", but not recommended for anyone other then experts. What way do you measure memory usage ?

EBAL

Member

Registered: 2024-02-13

Posts: 8

Re: about KDE

Thanks for the replies. I will try the "basic" option. I used the Htop supplied with the Plasma DE. Should I use something else to measure the memory usage?

Compared to "live", what is not in the "basic" option that makes it lighter on memory usage?

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,501

Website

Re: about KDE

The Desktop profiler "Basic" option is smart in the way it configures your system based on hardware, localization, and some other autodetection, so it can also remove unneeded packages. While "Live" option simply-bluntly clones a live system to the hard drive.

Determining the actual memory requirements for current kernels is not an easy task because they use the available memory in a really complex way, using caches and buffers and various fuzzy approaches for memory management. It depends on the hardware and software configuration from machine to machine. If you get a higher number with htop, it may not mean that the system actually requires more RAM.

EBAL

Member

Registered: 2024-02-13

Posts: 8

Re: about KDE

@q4osteam: thanks for your reply. I reinstalled Q4os on the same device and chose the "basic" option (of the KDE version). I can confirm this is the option I chose because it doesn't have Chromium browser installed only Konqueror.

I'm still seeing 600+MB of memory usage using Htop right after booting-up. Is this expected? When you meant basic would be "lighter" than live, is this for memory usage or disk usage?