From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1MgcOp-0007H3-2P for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:40:11 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id A03B7E0A6B; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:49:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-yw0-f181.google.com (mail-yw0-f181.google.com [209.85.211.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78585E0A6B for ; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:49:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ywh11 with SMTP id 11so1759901ywh.16 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:49:24 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:sender:received:in-reply-to :references:date:x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type; bh=g+uvuBrN9K9HmPoazbQuP+olW3NyzZy1gfYyxG6Oqow=; b=C7v+ZKPgJSPlOLKsV9MD0rEqGTvTIsj70RCDmv7M3jGj8jmHT/UnbLppB/OwNQCRs9 848OT+x8nr7yZGQQbRlXArZmBOYSp7Gf5CET88JhAEBcGzhDgUWzJGYQtWs2aRtY+mOj ownti7HRjx0nYM0ZJj+XmxLlyrgWm18NA8GgI= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:sender:in-reply-to:references:date :x-google-sender-auth:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type; b=ElG4SDKTpy7xnJwWUyEGn9STHKmrXA72b+2of6KkK2Dei6uEiryoD/uB0/sZRB++au 24Kl9/by8RsMN7EuM6SRbxHH6MTZj2kBrJJq+meL/QCtGcUVJJsTDiQqfgCOcNYQUGq0 idp1uObT6WEN7i9qEFkRl183muIfR7iWFP9eo= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Sender: paul.hartman@gmail.com Received: by 10.150.90.4 with SMTP id n4mr48505ybb.170.1251388164165; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 08:49:24 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <652883.3253.qm@web65401.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <200908250133.23329.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> <200908261813.52044.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> <652883.3253.qm@web65401.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:49:24 -0500 X-Google-Sender-Auth: 169e9187b3217d61 Message-ID: <58965d8a0908270849g600521d9j41ac0d1b7ddf5c04@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Heads-up: KDEers: Particularly kde3-ers, From: Paul Hartman To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Archives-Salt: 38598554-e4f2-4f8b-ba0c-cd73282a29ba X-Archives-Hash: bc81c3d565a0732c36b0b680715f3b30 On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 8:16 AM, BRM wrote: > Not everyone upgrades their video card every 6 months. > Most probably get a video card upgrade only when they buy a new computer; > and most don't buy a new computer every other year either, probably more like 4 years or so. You can get a GeForce 9600 for around USD$50, which comes near the performance of the famously-expensive 8800 series (or at least near enough for costing hundreds of dollars less), and has an H.264 decoder so you can use vdpau with mplayer or mythtv to allow even very slow computers to play high-res video smoothly. Many people spend that much to fill up their automobile or go out to to the movies or a dinner with the family. I don't think it's an incomprehensible amount of money to spend on something that will greatly improve performance on your computer for quite a long time, but I also understand that everyone has their own budget to live by, things are more expensive in some countries, and some people are not technically inclined or physically able to do things like changing a video card. > I typically buy a new computer about every 8 years; and most people I know are probably between 4 and 8 years. That seems about right to me, though 4 or 5 years in computers is a lifetime. I know some people who are still using Windows 95 machines at home (so old, even the viruses aren't compatible anymore!). And most people are using Windows XP which just had its 8-year birthday. I personally seem to upgrade about ever other CPU generation. I went from an XT to a 386 to P2 to P4 to Core 2. > So yes, KDE4 must be able to handle older hardware as Duncan describes. Look on the bright side, the work they are doing now will be mature and run smoothly on your next new computer and last you well into the future another 4-8 years after that. :) According to KDE FAQ on kde.org: "To run KDE it is recommended that you have at least a pentium II processor, 64MB of memory and 500MB of free disk space for a basic installation." Definitely not cutting-edge hardware requirements. I think the requirements to compile KDE are probably greater than the requirements to run it. If you're trying to use all of the special 3D effects etc then of course the requirements will be higher, just like windows vista 3D effects require newer hardware. And it'll make things slower in many cases, just like windows vista 3D effects. :) My computer is fast compared to the ones you mentioned, but is not cutting-edge: it is more than 2 years old, Abit motherboard (Abit doesn't even exist anymore), Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 (no longer made), Samsung 500GB 5400 RPM hard drive (current price new: USD$50), 8GB of DDR800 RAM (USD$110) and a Nvidia Geforce 9600GT video card (USD$70), but I disabled the desktop effects/3D stuff in KDE4 for a few reasons. Primarily because everything feels a lot more responsive without it. Also, none of the desktop effects that I used had any utility, they were just "eye candy" (there are some which have real use, like zooming out to see all windows, but I didn't use those) so I can live without them. I would also have weird issues when using some 3D programs, usually when pop-ups happened (new mail) it would get really extremely slow and flicker, which does not happen when effects are off. There was also the "X uses 100% CPU" problem that started around the time of KDE 4.3; don't know if it's the fault of KDE or xorg or nvidia-drivers but it does not happen when desktop effects are off. I also have Gentoo on my laptop which is a little older. Athlon64 2.0 GHz with 1.25GB of RAM and ATI Mobile Radeon 9700 video card. Not a bad laptop overall, but compared to the Core 2 it takes double the time to compile things on average. KDE4 performance was actually not bad on this machine, it felt about the same as the desktop machine honestly, but the compile times were a killer to me. I don't know how you guys use gentoo on such old old hardware, your machines must spend more time compiling than not. :) For a laptop which is not my primary device, it was a bit ridiculous in my case. Sometimes I may go 2 or 3 months without even turning the laptop on, so then I've have like a weeks worth of compiling and updating to do. Gentoo is -definitely- more manageable when you do the updates often (I do them daily on the desktop). So, on the laptop I switched to XFCE (which has 3D effects now too, by the way) primarily because of the much shorter compile times and less frequent updates. If I used a different distro and compiling wasn't a factor, I would probably still use KDE4 on that machine, though. Too bad Gentoo is the best so I'm not going to swtich. :)