These Xfce Versus KDE Numbers Reveal A Shocking Surprise About Linux Desktop Environments

[jango]

I’m as surprised about writing this article as you are at reading that headline. But yes, folks, in much of my initial testing the latest version of KDE (5.17) is using less RAM than Xfce 4.14.

After seeing a couple stray comments on Twitter making this very claim, I felt compelled to see if there was any substance to it. So I set up a couple test environments and recruited my podcasting colleague Zebedee Boss (of Destination Linux) to run independent tests of his own.

Test #1: IDLE RAM Usage, VM Versus Natively Installed

 

 

Source:

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[zigzag]

Memory usage was about 220-300 MB in 4.12.

4.14 become very memory hungry (500-600MB).

[brain_death]

My current Xfce Arch Linux setup consumes around 1 GB of RAM on a clean reboot to the desktop. I don't find that a problem nowadays...

 

Looks nice too, but not like Windows - my main objection to KDE.

 

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Edit:

 

My streamlined Windows 10 install uses 2.3 GB of RAM under the same circumstances.

 

That's 130% more than my Linux rig...

 

Off-topic, I know. Just saying!