KDE a little overkill?

[MasterC]

Hello,

Just looking for some discussion on the choice of DE.  I realize previously it was Gnome which wasn't (isn't) exactly "light" but I find that KDE is considerably more overkill.  It requires unnecessary system resources for a full system solution (LMCE "take over" install) to run KDE in addition to the Core applications and any other server applications that may exist on an 'always on' type system.  I'm curious why Xubuntu wasn't the chosen candidate for the move from mainstream Ubuntu as it is considerably less system resource 'hogging' and still provides access to the packages necessary to build LMCE?

I'm not trying to criticize, but rather trying to find the rationale on why KDE (Kubuntu) was selected over any other option that the *Ubuntu team offers.  In addition, I'm interested in any information on utilizing Xubuntu (or even Fluxbox on Kubuntu) rather than KDE based Kubuntu to carry out my LMCE install/system.

Thank you!

-Chad

[xShad0w]

AMEN TO THAT, I didn't use lmce 1.0 because I don't have edgy eft but I installed ubuntu and it was just so lightweight and speedy i absolutly loved it, then i installed kubuntu for lmce 1.1 beta 2 and omfg did i hate, slow, slow slow, kde is also laggy on my fairly powerful computer, i had problems with an update and had to reinstall again, took me like 50 trys to finally get it installed and then once i did i can only run it on ui1 and even then in the most basic mode the interface is all screwed up, everything looks like crap and it doesnt shut out the bottom taskbar and stuff on the desktop, it just transpercies over it so i can still click all those thigns, and all the fonts and stuff get broken half way through the little box, ill have to get a nvidia card for ui2 but even so, and it was laggy as crap, and i dont mean lmce i mean kde in general, i just think gnome is a much better choice, especially feisty fawn, im deffiniatly keeping that on my computer, its much more intuitive to the average windows user then kubuntu, i had massive problems with that and still am having those problems, switch to gnome pleaseeeeeee

sorry for spelling mistakes, its late and im sleepy

[xShad0w]

Read the wikis and it seems they switched over for something about ubuntu having problems with x11 and stuff and kubuntu didnt have that problem so then they just decided to switch, it was really complicated so yea..

[bobpaul]

The wiki doesn't make any sense to me. It says the major reason was
a) Gnome doesn't support compositing (feisty has compiz, so... um, whatever. Maybe that's not an interface they're familiar with/KDE's wm is better for some reason (C++??))

b) To get around that limitation, they ran LMCE in a separate X server, but claim X11 only allows 1 XServer to have 3d support. That's just not true. I've been using commands like "sudo X:1 -ac & DISPLAY=:1 xterm" for gaming for years. This opens a new xserver without a wm on Ctrl+Alt+F8. Xterm is open allowing one to launch other apps. Often I replace xterm with cedega, but you can also load a window manager that way. If the second display didn't have 3D support, my games would be unplayable. The only limitation is that only 1 XServer can talk to the video card at a time, which really isn't a limitation.

If someone could explain what the wiki means by "However, you cannot have two X sessions both using hardware acceleration, therefore LinuxMCE forced Ubuntu to use Vesa mode, and the integration was messy" when I've been using 2 sessions with hardware acceleration for years.

[frY]

Hi,

I found out about your project yesterday. First i only took a look at version 1.0 and with ubuntu as base system it was all right.
But as i read that the newer versions will require kubuntu with kde desktop this project nearly died for me.

Why do you what to use kde? kde is only wolfing down system resources... ubuntu is fine, but xubuntu would even be nicer, because you don't need to spend so many resources on a window manager you don't need.

As bobpaul allready said, it is possible to run more than one X server with 3d support. One way is as bobpaul said with sudo, another way is simply adding
Section "DRI"
    Mode 0666
EndSection

to your xorg.conf

Hope this will change...

[pkerling]

Just to add my own experiences...

  "A problem with LinuxMCE 1.0 was that the window manager in the Gnome desktop in Ubuntu does not support compositing and some of the other extensions needed to deliver a rich multi-media experience."
Compositing support in metacity is currently being integrated. I can fully understand that you didn't yet want to use that, but I don't understand why this is a reason to take KDE. GNOME allows you to use whichever window manager you want. Why not just use something like CompizFusion (http://www.opencompositing.org/, or in former times Beryl or Compiz?). And... what exactly are "other extensions needed to deliver a rich multi-media experience."?

  "However, you cannot have two X sessions both using hardware acceleration, therefore LinuxMCE forced Ubuntu to use Vesa mode, and the integration was messy."
As already mentioned several times, this is simply a complete lie. I have used two servers, both with hardware OpenGL acceleration, several times before and I even did it a few minutes ago, just to confirm it's working. I don't know which hardware/drivers you're using, but I think it's most certain that they were causing this problem. Anyway, it works fine (NVIDIA-drivers version 1.0-9755).

Please understand that not everybody has enough money to buy a high-end media-center PC. Most media-center PCs will probably be old PCs with only a relatively low amount of memory. I know, KDE and GNOME, both configured well, use about the same amount of RAM. But there are other alternatives, like the already mentioned Xubuntu. A media-center PC is something most people won't use as a desktop, but only as media-center. So a big desktop environment like KDE or GNOME is simply a waste of time (They take longer to start than thinner environments) and ressources like CPU and RAM.

So please, explain to me why you chose Kubuntu/KDE. Or switch to something different.

[Ebbo]

The switch to KDE is intelligent, because if you take a look at plasma, it will bring some
lightweight nice looking UI Elements to be easy implemented.

At the moment it is a slow because it still has a big footprint of two systems running, I think .
I hope the two systems will do a good job and work together.

Plasma is great I tried it some days ago.

For Orbiters, a small KDE (Kiosk mode of KDE is great) should work really well in future.

The new KWin will also handle Hardware requirements better, so graphical effects will be disabled if the hardware is not strong enough.

[dopey]

I'm a little confused on this as currently KDE doesn't even load until after you have the orbiter launch the KDE desktop. Also the KDE window manager isn't used... I'm sure on the development side the QT libraries help out a lot, but you don't need to run a KDE desktop to use them... Since the KDE desktop doesn't need to be running for the operation for the Media Director, I don't see why you can't also use a Gnome desktop. Linux has always been about choice and I don't see any logical reason to limit the choice of which desktop we use.

[webpaul1]

>> why not gnome?

It's the window manager--not the desktop.  KDE allows you to use a window manager that supports compositing (alpha-blending).  Gnome only works with a window manager that doesn't support X11's composite extensions, so you can't do the nice alpha-blending ui stuff under Gnome.

[dopey]

Actually, as previously stated by others, Gnome works with several window managers, some of which do support compositing. But that's really a moot point since you aren't even using the KDE window manager...

[sp00nhead]

i'm just starting to see if i can install LMCE on a xubuntu machine. As the main need for the switch to kubuntu seems to be xfce, thats all.
I've just set up a vmware image of ubuntu 704 server and will be installing each deb from the lmce cds to monitor the extra packages needed.
i'll keep notes and get round to doing a wiki post as i go.

[MediaMonkey]

Without knowing the complexity involved in porting such a huge project, I would say that LinuxMCE should have been like GeeXboX! Even if that require restricting hardware options.