[dleslie]

Critically, I tend to use low-power machines because I hate fan noise and excessive heat.

I was using KDE on an RPi4 and Pinebook Pro. For basically all the computing that I do these machines are more than powerful enough; but apparently not for KDE (or Gnome3!)

[shmerl]

I like silent operation too, but I do the opposite, get a big case with 200 mm Noctua fans and double Noctua CPU cooler :) It runs very silently even with high end Ryzen.

The heat as long as it's dissipated out of the case to keep the system cool doesn't bother me.

[dleslie]

That doesn't provide a low-power solution, just a silent solution; you're still dissipating a lot of heat.

[shmerl]

Yes, but I don't need a low power solution. I need something that can compile things in reasonable time.

[dleslie]

I have a separate server for that, tucked away where I can't see it and I can easily vent the heat.

Builds never slow down my desktop experience.

[shmerl]

With 12 core Ryzen 9 they never slow it down for me too :)

[dleslie]

You must not hit the disk much. Even with a fast m.2 I get crippling io waits.

[dTal]

For what it's worth, I use a T480. It has a nice quad core i7 processor and it draws 5 watts at idle. That's hardly more than your Pi4 or your Pinebook Pro. The fan never spins up unless I'm burning 100% CPU. I run Plasma 5 and it's always perfectly snappy.

I don't think you're gaining a lot, using such low end hardware.

[dleslie]

I just looked.

There's no way I can afford a T480.

FOSS developers really should be using minspec machines to test.

[dTal]

Well, okay. You said you hated "fan noise and excessive heat", not "spending money". I'm just pointing out that this isn't a reason to avoid a fast, x86_64 computer.

That said, I'm sure there are many modern laptops for a fraction of the price of a T480 which will do the job just as well, and a lot better than a Pi4. What is "minspec" anyway? You have to draw a line somewhere. Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011? How about my desktop from 2005?

That said, by the spec sheet, those machines should be easily capable of running Plasma. If you're having problems, perhaps it's not Plasma's fault, but something to do with the blobby GPU driver stack?

[dleslie]

> Should I expect to run a modern DE on my smartphone from 2011?

No. That's a phone.

> How about my desktop from 2005?

Why not? That's approximately within the ability scope of the Pi4 and Pinebook Pro that I have.

DEs haven't really improved so significantly since then that they should need that much more power.

Their need for more computing ability has more to do with shoddier development practices than it does features.

The problems with KDE that I noted were mostly crashes and general broken behaviour; performance is more a Gnome3 problem, it only recently was capable of running on a Pi.

[dTal]

Ah. So, to be clear, this entire performance discussion was a red herring?

For completeness's sake I will just note that DEs are vastly different from 2005, notably in using GPU compositing; this is nicer in many ways and more power efficient, but stresses the driver stack a lot more. The crashing issues you mention are not common, so I would try running it on some different machines before blaming the instability on Plasma.

Interestingly, 2011 smartphones and 2005 desktops have broadly similar specs.

[dleslie]

IMHO, KDE has better perf on low end machines than Gnome3, but it's still a problem.

I had compiz back in the day; compositing isn't new. It's also not all that important; I'm basically using the same bones of the Windows 95 DE, 25 years later. Except Win95 was fast, lean, and incredibly unstable. ;)

I try KDE every year or so, and _always_ abandon it due to instability. I've filed tickets in the past but KDE developers, and to be fair Gnome devs too, seem to have your attitude: old and slow devices aren't worth their time, despite the large install base worldwide.

Hell, they're not much slower than Chromebooks or the previously popular Netbooks.

[dleslie]

They play Doom, Dosbox, and RetroArch (up to PSP/Dreamcast) just fine.