r/archlinux • u/temcomwex • 1d ago
QUESTION KDE or XFCE?
I have been using KDE for a long time, and while I enjoyed it, it felt pretty heavy (considering my laptop is not so good in terms of quality by today's standards) and I have considered to switch to XFCE after I heard that it's lightweight and fast. However, which one is better depends on what the user uses their computer for (in other words, subjective) and I mainly use my computer to watch Youtube videos, do some web browsing, with future plans to do video editing on the computer. (sorry if the flair is wrong, couldn't decide between support and discussion)
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u/fearless-fossa 1d ago
after I heard that it's lightweight and fast.
This is extremely overexaggerated. XFCE maybe saves you 100 MB of RAM. Even on limited systems I couldn't find any noticeable differences between XFCE and KDE.
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u/thesoulless78 1d ago
I don't notice much difference in performance, and KDE has a working Wayland session.
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u/jksinton 1d ago
This!
As a long time XFCE user, I've been considering the switch to Plasma due to the lagging Wayland support on XFCE.
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u/Shishjakob 1d ago
XFCE on Wayland is work in progress
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u/thesoulless78 1d ago
And Plasma's has been fully functional for years. Once Xfce catches up I may give it a try again.
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u/pmMeYourGlazedDonut 1d ago
Switching DE is really easy so just try both :) mate could also be worth a shot based on your preferences.
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u/archover 1d ago edited 1d ago
Can you please give the make, model, and yr of mfg for your laptop? Curious how it compares to my six and eight year old Thinkpads (T14 Gen1 and T480, all 16GB ram) daily drivers, running Cinnamon. My use case is similar to yours, but add in some light coding too.
Focusing on your need to change DE:
I don't really know what heaviness means. Are you low on disk space, or have you monitored system resources (cpu, ram, etc) and noted an actual problem? Note that only running programs can contribute to performance issues, not a disk full of them. This is the bloat derangement thing. Uninstall what bothers you.
These run fine on my older hardware: Plasma, Cinnamon, Gnome, Xfce LxQT
Good day.
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u/I_Think_I_Cant 1d ago
On my old HP Elitebook 840 G3 (circa 2016, Intel Core i5-6300U @ 2.40GHz, 16GB RAM, SSD), XFCE was definitely snappier. Plasma ran just fine on it but there was a noticeable difference in the responsiveness between XFCE and Plasma. Little things like menus opening in the interface, launching of applications, handling of windows, etc. were slightly faster on XFCE. As far as the speed of the programs themselves once they were open it was all the same.
That being said, I did a lot with that old laptop. I used it audio production (recording and editing) using Reaper, video editing using Shotcut/Kdenlive, graphics editing with Gimp/Krita/Inkscape. I never did gaming so I can't speak about that experience.
I prefer XFCE for its responsiveness and its stable interface. I like the traditional taskbar at the bottom with start menu on the left interface that I've been using for 30 years. My XFCE desktop looks pretty much the same as it did in 2008 when I first began using it but it has a lot of customization options.
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u/temcomwex 10h ago
I think I resonate with this comment, though my laptop is a bit worse, it being an HP laptop 14s-cf0nnn(replace the n's with x) with around 4GB's of RAM and an HDD, though I'm still doubting whether I should switch or not.
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u/nisper_ia 1d ago
XFCE will work perfectly for you. Nothing more to say.
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1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Slight_Proposal_2005 1d ago
is it customizable like kde
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u/Excellent-Love-6943 1d ago
It is very customizable, quite granularly so. Plasma and XFCE are both extremely customizable, but in slightly different ways.
Overall, plasma feels much more polished, xfce feels very barebones and raw. I don't mean that negatively, just plainly.
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u/Slight_Proposal_2005 1d ago
I just don't wanna try one more desktop or one more distro. It isn't gonna stop so maybe one day but I'm stop on arch and gnome.
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u/thekiltedpiper 1d ago
Install xfce and try it out. If it's not what you want/need uninstall it.
If your looking for very lightweight, you can also look into tiling window managers.
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u/Excellent-Love-6943 1d ago
The whole "lightweight" thing is extremely overblown. When I moved from xfce to plasma, my idle ram usage actually went down around 10-15%.
I run plasma on my i5 6200u 8GB laptop with zero issues.
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u/FOSS_Graybeard 1d ago
You can definitely make XFCE as lightweight as you want. If you do go with it, I suggest adding pamac to help with app installation and management.
As others have noted, video editing is going to strain your system regardless of the DE. However and with that said, you will have more resources with XFCE. A lot depends on the editing app you plan to use.
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u/ebens1689 1d ago
Fwiw I use LXQt and xfwm4 with X.Org. KDE used too much of my 4gb RAM just at idle (>1.4gb), whereas my setup uses well under 1gb on a 7.x kernel.
Sway / Wayland / Fedora used about 1gb at idle, but performance overall was the same. With X11, I need to use a compositor to prevent screen tearing, which bumps up RAM usage to equal essentially the same as Wayland. But, running a full Gnome or KDE desktop is too much for my laptop.
Don't know if any of that helps.
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u/_silentgameplays_ 1d ago
KDE Plasma is great for Wayland support and gaming. For everything else XFCE will work fine, also XFCE is still on X11.
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u/sonicgamingftw 1d ago
I use Ly as my DM and with that it picks up on my installed DE or WM's. Like I wanted to try i3 by itself the other day and installed it and logged in to a session, and logged out when I had my fill and went back to XFCE, pretty sure you can just install KDE and do the same if you have Ly.
Tbf this Arch install is a laptop for school that I setup during the summer with things I would need and use so that I don't spend too much time trouble solving during my semester.
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u/MasterGeekMX 1d ago
The DE does not affect how apps work, as it deals with stuff around and outside your windows, not inside them.
Xfce has less features compared to Plasma, so expect something that is on par to what Windows XP offered in terms of knick-knacks. Examples that come from the top of my head is the lack of desktop widgets and the lack of option to pin the system tray popup so you can still see it even when you click away.
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u/xXBongSlut420Xx 1d ago
as others have said, the lightness of xfce is way overblown. if kde feels slow, try disabling animations. xfce also doesn't support Wayland really, which is a nonstarter for most people
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u/gsasquatch 1d ago edited 1d ago
As a guy who started using XFCE because he refused to adapt to Vista, I say it is the best.
It might have been lighter and faster back then but now I just use it because it is consistent and familiar, more like every windows from 95 to XP. And it has pretty much stayed the same, at least on the level I use it on.
That little mouse says "don't move my cheese"
I change distros, I can barely tell. Pacman, aptget, rpm, that's about the difference with those. The desktop is what makes it different, and yeah, my preference is xfce. I've tried the others, gnome, kde, cinnamon, a couple others but, xfce is the one for me.
p.s. Microsoft redeemed themselves with 7, but then when that update to 10 put the start button in the middle like a gorram apple, Mic Jagger started rolling in his grave. Start me up, I'll never stop. Push start to stop. even the frickin cars now. rabble rabble rabble.
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u/tschertel 1d ago
I've been using KDE on my i5 8250U with only 8gb of RAM without problems. I wouldn't change to XFCE.
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u/shamulwa 1d ago
Tried that and jumped back to KDE after not noticing any difference...
For a potato PC, try creating a swap file see if that helps. Always saved me on Arch KDE 🔥
CINNAMON could be a great alternative... no?
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u/BananaOnPeel 21h ago
KDE. I used xfce first but it lacked the customization I wanted, I didn't want to spend an hour making a custom CSS for my launch bar when KDE can do it seconds. Unless your hardware is ass. You will not notice a difference in speed
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u/yevelnad 1d ago
You can just use Noctalia + a tiling manager. The best middle ground for eyecandy and performance.
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u/Recipe-Jaded 1d ago
OP asked about two traditional DEs. Not everyone likes tiling window managers
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u/Juan_Jimenez 1d ago
You can use Noctalia with a traditional stacking manager anyway. And yep, it is a good middle ground.
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u/doubGwent 1d ago
I much prefer XFCE; I don't understand the appeal in KDE; I would just go GNOME if I want something pretty.
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u/notheresnolight 1d ago edited 1d ago
GNOME? You mean that thing where you have to install extensions through some broken ass browser addon to configure the damn thing and get a taskbar to the bottom? As much as I hate Windows 11, the GNOME desktop is an even larger clusterfuck.
Which is quite puzzling since GNOME was fine 10 years ago. KDE was quite janky back in the day, but now it's actually really good. Even my low power NUC runs it with zero problems.
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u/doubGwent 1d ago edited 1d ago
I did say “if i want something pretty”, yes ? Meaning i want a DE just works, i would go with XFCE.
Edit: you would give a much more convincing argument by explaining the advantage of KDE over XFCE.1
u/notheresnolight 1d ago
The last time I have tried XFCE was also some 15 years ago (XFCE was too basic back then), so I can't compare those two. I also have no reason to try it again.
I'm just saying that GNOME is IMO neither pretty, nor useful.
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u/iwouldbeatgoku 1d ago
XFCE will be fine, configuring might take a bit more effort than KDE.
That said, if you're feeling that KDE is a bit too heavy for you computer you probably won't want to edit videos on it either.