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A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops Part 2

In my previous articleIve tried to investigate the RAM memory requirements for running some of the

most common light window managers and desktop environments available in the Linux world.

Prompted by several readers, Ive decided to include also the big, well-known memory hogs that grab

most of the Linux market, i.e. KDE, Unity and Gnome.

I am using the same setup, based on virtenv. It includes its own xserver (Xephyr) and a virtualization

container (LXC). The computer is an older 64-bit machine, running Ubuntu 12.04 with LXDE as desktop

environment.

I usefreecommand to measure the memory before and after the WM/DE is started. The command

prints on the screen data made available by Linux kernel. The kernel knows at any moment how much

memory is using and how many buers it has available.

I measure the WM/DE as it comes out of the box, with all the features the authors intended as default.

Arguably, this is not the best way to measure. All window managers are congurable, and users ingeneral tend to personalize them. This adds more memory to whatever numbers I publish here.

Ratpoison

Lightning fast and stable, Ratpoisonis a tiling window manager for the X Window System. The major

design goal of the project is to let the user manage application windows without using a mouse, hence

the name.

On Debian/Ubuntu install it as sudo apt-get install ratpoison, oryum install ratpoisonon Fedora. Start it

with ratpoisoncommand. Be prepared to read the documentation. It runs in 1MB of RAM memory.

Follow
http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/http://lxc.sourceforge.net/LXChttp://void%280%29/http://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/http://lxc.sourceforge.net/LXChttp://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Xephyrhttp://virtenv.sourceforge.net/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/


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http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part -2/ 2

Ratpoison Window Manager

wm2

wm2simply adds a frame to each window and attempts to look stylish. In the quest for being simple,

fast, and small, wm2 does not support icons, menus, toolbars, panels and docking areas.

Install it as apt-get install wm2on Debian/Ubuntu, and start it as wm2. It runs in 0.7MB, this is the

smallest WM Ive tried so far. wm2 is not supported on Fedora.

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wm2 Window Manager

FVWM

FVWM(Feeble Virtual Window Manager) is one of the most ancient window managers still in use today.

It is a powerful and highly congurable environment for Unix-like systems. Some very popular window

managers and desktop environments, such as Afterstep, Xfce, are derived from FVWM.
http://www.xfce.org/http://www.afterstep.org/http://www.fvwm.org/http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cmp-wm2.png


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(source Wikipedia)

On Debian/Ubuntu install it as apt-get install fvwm, oryum install fvwmon Fedora. Start it asfvwm. It runs

in 13MB of memory.


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FVWM Window Manager

Window Maker

Window Makerwindow manager provides the users with a consistent, clean, and elegant desktop based

on NeXTStepinterface, which eventually evolved into Mac OS X.

Window Maker is again under active development after seven years without an ocial release. It is not

available in Ubuntu software repositories (as of 12.04), you can however install it from a PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:profzoom/wmaker

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install wmaker
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On Debian install it as apt-get install wmaker, and asyum install windowmakeron Fedora. Start it as

wmaker. It runs in 7MB of memory.

Window Maker Window Manager

Razor-qt

Razor-qtis an advanced, easy-to-use, and fast desktop environment based on Qttechnologies. It is a

desktop for people who think KDE is bloated and suers from over-engineering.

Razor-qt is a new open-source project, and it is not ocially supported by most Linux distributions. For

Ubuntu users, the development team keeps a PPA up-to-date. The software works on any Ubuntu from

version 9.10 onwards. Installation is as follows:
http://qt-project.org/http://razor-qt.org/http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cmp-windowmaker.png


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sudo add-apt-repository ppa:razor-qt

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install razorqt

The default install from PPA runs on top of KWin in 139MB of memory. It can be switched to OpenBox,

drastically reducing the memory size.

On Debian jessie install it as apt-get install razorqt, and in Fedora 19 and up asyum install razorqt. Start

it as razor-session.

Razor-qt Desktop Environment

KDE
http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cmp-razor.png


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Ive always liked KDE. Elegant and reasonably fast, it is an excellent desktop choice for people

developing GUI software. In particular I like Katetext editor and KDi3. Qt development tools are also

well supported, but that was to be expected from a desktop based on Qt library.

I installed kde-plasma-desktoppacket from Ubuntu 12.04. The packet is described hereas the bare-

minimum required. I started it in console as openbox-kde-session. It runs in 201MB. On a real KDE

desktop such as Kubuntu it will be much more.

Note: the 201MB measurement was done on top of Openbox window manager. Usually, distros will pair KDE

with KWin window manager. This will add 100MB.

A full installation on Debian/Ubuntu is done as apt-get install kde, and on Fedora asyum install @kde-

desktop.

KDE Desktop Environment

Unity
http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cmp-kde.pnghttps://help.ubuntu.com/community/InstallingKDEhttp://kdiff3.sourceforge.net/http://kate-editor.org/http://www.kde.org/


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Unityis the default desktop in Ubuntu. Ubuntu is what they recommend you to try when you move to

Linux. It is friendly, functional, and geared towards human beings. Too bad it runs in 192MB of

memory! It would be a good idea to trim it down, lets say by 50%. As a note, DOS conquered the world

by running in 64KB of memory.

Unity is installed as sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop. You can start it with unitycommand.

Unity Desktop Environment

Gnome 3

Gnome 3is an experimental desktop developed mostly by RedHat. Not all the functionality is ready (for

example the taskbar and the menus are missing), and there are problems in the listening-to-your-users

department. If you are looking for Gnome 2 functionality or something similar, check out Linux Mint

website.

I installed Gnome 3 as sudo apt-get install gnome-shell(Debian/Ubuntu) and started it asgnome-session. It
http://www.linuxmint.com/http://www.gnome.org/gnome-3/http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cmp-unity.pnghttp://www.ubuntu.com/http://unity.ubuntu.com/


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went through 155MB of memory before painting anything on the screen. On Fedora Gnome 3 is

installed asyum install @gnome-desktop.

Gnome 3 Desktop Environment

Trinity, Mate, Cinnamon

In a normal world, where development teams listen to users, this should never have happened. Not

only these environments are smaller and faster, they actually do what desktop environments are

supposed to do.

To install Trinity, follow the instructions from here. Start it as/opt/trinity/bin/startkde. It runs in 55MB of

memory.

To install MATE, follow the instruction from here. Start it as mate-session. It runs in 42MB of memory.

Mate was included in Fedora 19, where is installed asyum groupinstall MATE Desktop.
http://wiki.mate-desktop.org/downloadhttp://mate-desktop.org/http://www.trinitydesktop.org/wiki/bin/view/Documentation/UbuntuBinaryInstallationhttp://www.trinitydesktop.org/http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/cmp-gnome3.png


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I installed Cinnamonas follows:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwendal-lebihan-dev/cinnamon-stable

sudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install cinnamon

Ive started it as cinnamon. It runs in 79MB. The package was included in Debian sid and it is installed

as apt-get install cinnamon. Cinnamon was also included in Fedora 19, where it is installed asyum

groupinstall Cinnamon Desktop.

Trinity Desktop Environment
http://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/cmp-trinity.pnghttp://cinnamon.linuxmint.com/


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Conclusion

If you have some ancient hardware that you need to breathe new life into, or if you need to t a distro

on a modestly sized memory stick, the rst thing you should look at is the window manager/desktop

environment. Whatever your needs, Linux is much more than Gnome and KDE.

WM/DE Memory (MB)

Links:

TinyWM, 9wm, miwm, wm2, dwm, Ratpoison, TWM, xmonad,JWM, i3, Blackbox, Sawsh, IceWM,
http://www.icewm.org/http://sawfish.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Pagehttp://blackboxwm.sourceforge.net/http://i3wm.org/http://joewing.net/projects/jwm/http://xmonad.org/http://xwinman.org/vtwm.phphttp://www.nongnu.org/ratpoison/http://dwm.suckless.org/http://www.all-day-breakfast.com/wm2/http://miwm.sourceforge.net/http://unauthorised.org/dhog/9wm.htmlhttp://incise.org/tinywm.htmlhttp://l3net.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/cmp-all4.png


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PekWM, Openbox, Window Maker, awesome, FVWM, Fluxbox, Mutter, E17, LXDE, KWin, MATE, Trinity,

XFCE, Cinnamon, Razor-qt, Gnome 3, Unity, KDE

Related Posts

A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops Part 1

A Memory Comparison of Light Linux Desktops Part 3Ubuntu Desktop Memory Comparison

Lightweight openSUSE: LXDE Desktop From Scratch

Lightweight Debian: LXDE Desktop From Scratch

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A Memory Comparison of

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for openSUSE 13.1

Since youre including KDE and GNOME for comparison, I wonder if you would include also the Trinity-

DE, which is the currently maintained version of KDE3.5

Bob RobertsonApril 11, 2013 at 12:52 pm
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Ill be glad to do it. The command to install it on Ubuntu (from trinitydesktop.org) is:

sudo apt-get install kubuntu-default-settings-trinity kubuntu-desktop-trinity

It is a 280 MB download. I am looking for an equivalent to kde-plasma-desktop package (74MB

download) from regular KDE.

For a minimal installation you can use:

aptitude install xserver-xorg kdm-trinity ksmserver-trinity

Thanks! Ive installed it as:

sudo apt-get install kdm-trinity ksmserver-trinity

Logout and login again, kde session started ne in a little less than 60MB. There are some problems

however with one library on Ubuntu 12.04:

konsole: symbol lookup error: /opt/trinity/lib/libkdeui.so.4: undened symbol:

_ZN7QObject18childrenListObjectEv

netblue30

April 11, 2013 at 3:09 pm

Post author

SlavekBApril 11, 2013 at 5:04 pm

netblue30

April 11, 2013 at 5:39 pm

Post author
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It is possible that in some packages missing run ldcong after installation. Please try to just run ldcong

to update the cache.

I see it the problem is not the lack of run ldcong. The problem is that you have installed libqt3-mtfrom distribution, instead of the updated version from the Trinity sources.

That would explain it. Anyway, the session is 55MB, and looks better than plasma. Congratulations to all

the people involved in the project!

SlavekB

April 12, 2013 at 2:42 pm

SlavekBApril 12, 2013 at 2:56 pm

netblue30

April 12, 2013 at 3:15 pm

Post author

Do you have a source on Enlightenment being derived from something else? Im fairly certain that the

latest release from the E team is 100% their code not based on anything else.

Je HooglandApril 11, 2013 at 1:16 pm

netblue30

April 11, 2013 at 3:19 pm

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FVWM

Also the picture with FVWM derivatives comes from Wikipedia.

That was a very very long time ago E17 has not a line in common with FVWM at all.

CedricJuly 22, 2013 at 5:42 am

you should add xmonad, it is like awesome but a bit more powerful imho.

Ive tried it, it wouldnt run. It could be a problem with the package distributed by Ubuntu 12.04, it was

complaining about some executable missing. Ill try again.

+1. In fact its only an extensive library of things you might want from a WM, and you just compose your

own (or you replace any parts by your code).

lApril 11, 2013 at 2:15 pm

netblue30April 11, 2013 at 3:12 pm

Post author

vcunat

April 11, 2013 at 11:00 pm
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+1 please add xmonad, Im interested in seeing the result, thx

Managed to run xmonad. Together with xmobar it runs in 2MB of memory.

xmobar is quite heavy, and is only one of many trayer/bar solutions for xmonad. True measurements of

the default experience would not include 3rd party add-ons like xmobar.

Agreed! Without xmobar it was around 0.5MB. Ill modify the picture, thanks.

youdontknowJuly 8, 2013 at 4:13 pm

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 7:17 pm

Post author

Don Stewart

July 15, 2013 at 9:14 am

netblue30

July 15, 2013 at 11:26 am

Post author

Missing 16 consumption!

on my gentoo comp:

dolopito

April 11, 2013 at 8:34 pm
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Pingback: Links 15/4/2013: Underwater Linux, More Android Phones | Techrights

VIRT RES SHR

17340 9716 5952

Thanks for the eort. TWM brought back some fond memories that was my go-to WM in the early 90s.

Brad

June 17, 2013 at 9:21 pm

You forgot ion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion_(window_manager)

Sure, Ill give it a try!

Later: Sorry, couldnt do it. Ion doesnt seem to be in Ubuntu repositories, at least not for 12.04.

Scott Rubin

July 8, 2013 at 2:38 pm

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 3:06 pm

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Id like to see xfce4 and awesomewm, as well. Good list though. Ratpoison is great.

Youve missed part 1: http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-

desktops/

ah indeed, thanks.

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 3:06 pm

Post author

samegordon

July 8, 2013 at 3:18 pm

You are comparing window managers to full desktop environments, its like apples to oranges

Also, between window managers, features dier so much this kind of comparison is kind of useless

> You are comparing window managers to full desktop environments, its like apples to oranges

Dont assume everybody uses a desktop manager. Many people just install a window manager and are

happy with it. Fluxbox is a very popular one, there are distros out there running Fluxbox by default.

phoJuly 8, 2013 at 3:25 pm

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Also, tiling window manager are very popular. It is more like comparing people who like apples with

people who like oranges.

> Also, between window managers, features dier

Yes, features do dier, this doesnt mean we cannot compare the resulting desktop.

Well said!

Jonas LindstrmJuly 8, 2013 at 6:23 pm

Nice article, even if I quite disagree with the conclusions!

Just some points, mostly about GNOME 3:

GNOME 3 is denitely not experimental, having hit the 3.8 release Id say its quite mature, even if it is

still evolving rapidly;

GNOME Shell does not have a proper taskbar but shows all the open windows in its overview mode

and the same overview mode is used to start applications, so theres no conventional menu, even tough

there are extensions to add those features (Im not sure to which taskbar and menus you were referring

to);

In my experience GNOME 3 developers usually listen to their users as much as developers from every

other OSS project out there: it usually works but theres always a few cases where things go bad; Usually behind those complains theres no active push back from the developers, it is just that the

available manpower is limited and the developers priorities may not match the ones from the

complaining user;

Even if the GNOME 3 developers strive to oer the most comfortable user experience out-of-the-box

(and luckily my usage match almost perfectly what they provide ), it is clear that many users have

dierent ideas about how a desktop should behave and it often impossible to cater for all of them:

instead of providing a multitude of stand-alone switches in the UI they have chosen to provide an

extension system where the user can install packages that can heavily inuence the system behaviour,

Emanuele Aina

July 8, 2013 at 3:33 pm
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tweaking the underlying knobs in a much more coherent manner;

Note that `free` is often misleading, as the real working set may be quite a bit smaller than what it

returns (think about plugin libraries loaded but not actively used), and if you load a Qt application under

KDE the additional memory needed will be smaller than the one needed under FVWM or GNOME due to

the sharing of the code pages between processes (same for GTK+/Clutter under GNOME).

Anyway, interesting post!

Thanks for your comment. I wrote this article 3 months ago with whatever version was and still is

distributed by Ubuntu 12.04 denitely an experimental Gnome 3. Probably things have evolved and

3.8 looks and moves better.

Since Ubuntu switched to Unity, GNOME 3 packaging has been neglected quite a bit, so it is possible

that your bad experience with it is more due to broken packaging than the real status of the software. I

dont know how things currently stand in the Ubuntu camp, maybe there is a PPA out there with up-to-

date GNOME packages. Fedora 19 should have the latest and greatest GNOME 3 packages which may

be interesting to try, even if it is not going to be super-useful for the comparison since it is a completely

dierent distro

Thanks, but Gnome3 just doesnt work for me. I cannot use a desktop without a taskbar and without a

menu button. I am happy with LXDE, it has everything I need out of the box.


Post author

Emanuele Aina

July 9, 2013 at 7:49 am

netblue30

July 9, 2013 at 11:49 am

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I think Ubuntu 12.04 installs today Gnome 3.4, and so does Debian 7. There is no package broken, this

guys know how to package software. Everything works as it was intended by the Gnome development

team. The bugs get xed in later Gnome versions, your regular Ubuntu/Debian long time support user

doesnt have access to them.

In my experience GNOME 3 developers usually listen to their users as much as developers from every

other OSS project out there

Trust me, I really wish you were right. The same way I felt betrayed by the KDE developers back when

they abandoned v3 and only oered updates for v4, I felt bad yet again about the Gnome developers

abandoning v2 and only supporting v3. Its about stopping the maintenance and bug-xing of really

good DEs in favor of severely crippled versions of them. It doesnt matter what Gnome 3 is today and

what it can be one year from now. It matters more that for 2 years we had to look for something we can

actually work with, and that by stepping out of our comfort/productivity zone.

If youre interested in seeing great developer-user communication, you should experience with the way

the Cinnamon developers listen to their users and you will probably feel amazed. I wont say its all

great, but actually getting your hands dirty and build a new DE for the users who wanted a mix ofclassic-style DE and a modern DE, thats not something we see every day. Cinnamon is the result of tons

of user feedback, and thats what makes it special.

What you said about Gnome 3 can be 100% true for your case, in which case I wonder if youre aware of

the massive Gnome 3 user feedback: http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?

page=news_item&px=MTAwMjY


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wish the developers would listen more of what the users say. Not to blindly do what the users ask, but

just show more respect to their user base their supporters.

Cinnamon is the result of tons of user feedback, and thats what makes it special.

Oh, and I feel that the same is true for GNOME too, its probably just a dierent set of users.

Also dont forget that most of the libraries used by Cinnamon are the ones developed by the GNOME 3

team, so some indirect credit should go to them too.

Also dont forget that most of the libraries used by Cinnamon are the ones developed by the GNOME 3

team, so some indirect credit should go to them too.

I am sure Cinnamon project already gives Gnome team all the credit required by GPL license, and if

Cinnamon becomes a very successful project, Gnome team will receive even more credit. I think the

discussion is about listening to your users, and it has nothing to do with giving credit to other projects.

Sorry Emanuele, Ill have to close the Gnome discussion here, it is denitely o topic, and there are

already so many places on the net dissecting this issue.

Emanuele Aina

December 22, 2013 at 5:56 pm

netblue30December 22, 2013 at 7:11 pm

Post author

Hey can you do twm?

Luke HollinsJuly 8, 2013 at 4:03 pm
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2490http://gravatar.com/lwh77http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4699http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4697http://nerd.ocracy.org/em


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TWM running in 1.2MB of memory


Post author

Its a shame you didnt include Awesome, its very awesome, and consumes ~40 Mb on my machine

Its a shame you didnt read the rst part of the article:

http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/

Andrei Lisnic

July 8, 2013 at 5:39 pm

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 6:21 pm

Post author

Thanks great article. I have some questions.

1. Command free gives you absolute value of memory consumption. Dont you think dierent systems

in dierent state would result in dierent RAM consumption? Wouldnt it be better to run a window

manager or desktop environment for some time in order to measure and average real memory

consumption?

2. Most systems now a days come with ample amount of RAM. My current system comes with 8GB of

Sudhir Khanger

July 8, 2013 at 5:40 pm
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2495http://blog.sudhirkhanger.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2497http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2494http://www.facebook.com/andrei.lisnichttp://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2492http://l3net.wordpress.com/


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RAM. Does higher RAM consumption corresponds to greater power consumption and shorter battery

life?

3. Lastly, if several desktop environments and window managers are installed on a system, are they

going to interfere with each other?

Thank you for your comments.

1. I measure memory for a WM or DE with the default conguration as it comes from the package

manager. I do the measurement as I start the WM/DE. What happens after one hour I dont really know,

I guess it all depends how you use it.

2. It is very dicult today to persuade anybody to install Linux on a new computer. Most of the time I

see Linux going on old Windows 7 and very old WindowXP computers. What computers they sell in the

store today is irrelevant, Linux has no chance to run on them.

3. You can run only one of them at a time.

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 6:35 pm

Post author

What would be interesting is how those desktop environment behave in memory usage if you open up

the usual applications (the default ones coming with the desktop for example).

So opening up a le-manager, browser and music player and see how the memory consumptionchanges.

Leszek

July 8, 2013 at 5:49 pm

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 6:38 pm

Post author
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2500http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2496http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2499http://l3net.wordpress.com/


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I guess the biggest memory hogs out there are Firefox and Chromium, around 200MB with one tab and

no webpage loaded.

You forgot about Sawsh and e16 (more usable than e17, imho)

e16 is not available in Ubuntu 12.04. Sawsh runs in 2MB of memory.

Oleg

July 8, 2013 at 6:46 pm

netblue30

July 8, 2013 at 7:15 pm

Post author

I3 and DWM are also excellent very lightweight window managers.

C

July 8, 2013 at 8:35 pm

PekWM!

MrYesNo

July 8, 2013 at 10:29 pm

Bud AJuly 9, 2013 at 12:26 am
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2509http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2507http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2505http://w/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2502http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2501


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Pingback: Anonymous

Pingback: Links 12/7/2013: Seth Vidal (Yum Entrepreneur) Killed, Snowden Accepts Asylum | Techrights

Ive been running cwm for over a year now on OpenBSD. Truly everything I need, very lightweight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbox_%28window_manager%29missed:)

SunnyDrakeJuly 10, 2013 at 9:58 pm

ummm fyi enlightenment doesnt descend from fvwm. it just sohappens i hacked ON fvm (made

fvwm-xpm) before i made enlightenment. enlightenment 0.1 and on is and was always totally original

code (rewritten for 0.14, and again for 0.17).

nice.. i had unchecked feeling of oneshot tight code programming base setuping e17 for my tablet. still

despite proles E17 still somewhat pack of utilites with no mainstream target optimized ui. i hope devs

will add prole based needed options as priority development tasks and add features in all

components. based on my exp with tablet prole it still needs a lot of external tools to be task-ready

deployment solution(despite some options avaiable in separate E17 components(like touch scrolling)

but it limits other options and half-avaiable or no-avaiable to other E17/noE17 systems).

Carsten Haitzler

July 22, 2013 at 2:54 am

SunnyDrake

July 22, 2013 at 1:06 pm
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2675http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2670https://www.facebook.com/carsten.haitzlerhttp://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2550http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matchbox_%28window_manager%29http://techrights.org/2013/07/12/snowden-accepts-asylum/https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-news-59/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-%96-part-2-a-4175469016/#post4987054


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Pingback: Xubuntu 13.10 Ugly But Honest | Trotch

Wow, E17 uses surprising less memory. If E17 uses less memory than LXDE, whats the point of using

LXDE? I always thought that Enlightment was bloated because of its fancy graphics.

And for XFCE, it seems this DE saves nothing at all.

Competition is good, so we need all of them: E17, LXDE, XFCE etc.

AC

August 21, 2013 at 4:01 am

netblue30

August 21, 2013 at 10:34 am

Post author

Thanks for taking the time to do a review of all these dierent desktop environments based on memory

usage. I found it really useful and have referred back to the chart several times now before I do a new

install. And you supplying the install command line saved me a bunch of time from having to go nd the

command line myself. This info is vital especially for those who are on VPS hosting.

Keep up the good work

Thanks again!

good infoNovember 18, 2013 at 9:00 am

Nicolae Crefelean

December 20, 2013 at 7:12 am
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4666https://plus.google.com/107624202916004235164http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4461http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2981http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-2975http://www.trotch.com/blog/xubuntu-13-10-ugly-but-honest/


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Thanks for taking time to test so many WMs and DEs. It felt a bit weird to see others arguing about the

testing methods considering you cant possibly replicate everyones setup or work habits.

For me, this is denitely a place to come back to look at the gures when trying to install minimalistic

GUI Linux machinse. I just wish it had more screenshots, possibly for each WM/DE.

Great read!

Thanks! I have some more screenshots in the rst article. Not everything got covet however, something

to x in the future.

Thanks for your reply.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

netblue30


Post author

Nicolae Crefelean


netblue30


Post author

PePaMarch 4, 2014 at 1:30 am
http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-5011http://gravatar.com/peterpasschierhttp://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4675http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4674https://plus.google.com/107624202916004235164http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/04/09/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops-part-2/comment-page-1/#comment-4670http://l3net.wordpress.com/http://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/


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Really happy with the low memory usage of MATE. I hope they keep improving this ne environment.

a memory comparison of light linux desktops – part 2 _ l3net – a layer 3 networking blog.pdf

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