Make XFCE Faster?

Desktop Environments XFCE
1

Hi guys,
As shown on this thread, I played with KDE Plasma, disabled almost all effects and fancy stuff, and I found it resulted in a light speed system (a bit slower).

I just reinstalled offline (XFCE, BTRFS), I am sure some effects or stuff can be done as well with XFCE to get it fast as I did with KDE Plasma?

The only feature I might need is transparency while dragging a window.

(Sorry I am absolutely new to XFCE, been on KDE almost all time)
P.S. from previous testing the past few days, I installed dolphin (which pulled baloo. I just feel more comfortable with them)

Which features to disable (or uninstall) and how?
Thank you.

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2

Dificult because as functionalitisch xfce is almost to the bone compared to kde and gnome. Since gtk3 as ram use not a good thing for xfce… you can try eventual unneeded panel extentions out what you dont need. In xfwm4 manager tweak disable shadows set in xfconf in xfwm4 to use libxpresent or off in vblank settings… dificult to day because with xfce you get what you take not lot space

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3

Nowadays, Plasma is simply faster than Xfce. KDE devs have really put in a lot of effort into optimisation.

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4

Ok. I’ll give it a try.
If not I’ll repeat what I did yesteday and install KDE and tweak it.

5

It was only responsive after I disabled all effects.

I’ll try what @ringo suggested. If not I’ll redo what I did yesterday with KDE. I’ll disable all effects, but I wonder which one to leave to give me the transparency while dragging a window.

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6

If you are constrained by your hardware you may also try i3wm. Wm use less resources but the approach is quite different. Interaction focuses on the keyboard. I had generally good experience running it separately in another session but installed alongside xfce to try.

Edits: its not making xfce faster but alternative approach…

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7

I believe my machine is not hat bad.

[limo@lenovo ~]$ inxi -F
System:    Host: lenovo Kernel: 5.14.6-arch1-1 x86_64 bits: 64 Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 
           Distro: EndeavourOS 
Machine:   Type: Laptop System: LENOVO product: 20157 v: Lenovo G580 
           serial: <superuser required> 
           Mobo: LENOVO model: Emerald Lake 2 v: FAB1 serial: <superuser required> UEFI: LENOVO 
           v: 62CN34WW date: 04/26/2012 
Battery:   ID-1: BAT0 charge: 27.7 Wh (98.6%) condition: 28.1/42.8 Wh (65.6%) 
CPU:       Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3210M bits: 64 type: MT MCP cache: L2: 3 MiB 
           Speed: 2078 MHz min/max: 1200/3100 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 2078 2: 1994 3: 2423 
           4: 1700 
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics driver: i915 v: kernel 
           Device-2: Acer Lenovo Integrated Webcam type: USB driver: uvcvideo 
           Display: x11 server: X.org 1.20.13 driver: loaded: intel 
           unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa resolution: <missing: xdpyinfo> 
           Message: Unable to show advanced data. Required tool glxinfo missing. 
Audio:     Device-1: Intel 7 Series/C216 Family High Definition Audio driver: snd_hda_intel 
           Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.14.6-arch1-1 running: yes 
           Sound Server-2: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes 
Network:   Device-1: Broadcom BCM4313 802.11bgn Wireless Network Adapter driver: wl 
           IF: wlan0 state: up mac: 08:ed:b9:97:27:0f 
           Device-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8162 Fast Ethernet driver: alx 
           IF: enp3s0 state: down mac: f0:de:f1:fd:53:97

It seems to me that the “bells and whistles” of KDE Plasma is taking a lot, (more than it should be taking I think)

8

Once you load up web browser with content and youtube etc the Desktop Environment resource usage will be pale in comparison :slight_smile:

Using KDE and turning off compositor, no desktop effects, no widgets etc feels like it is taking away the whole experience of KDE itself leaving just a nice taskbar and application menu. The wobbly windows is the best fun part.

9

You are right sure.
But all thes fancy stuff caused it to be very unresponsive and it went super after I disabled all these stuff.

I’m looking now at “settings editor”, it seems there might be some bells and whistles I can take away.
But generally, default XFCE is doing much better than default KDE.
As I mentioned before, I’m always naughty. And I really hope I wont break anything this time (though I doubt it, I never felt OK without breaking things :rofl:)
UPDATE: as

I didn’t find something interesting to break :rofl:

I will stay for now on XFCE as it is and see.

You guys are wonderful! I’m enjoying :heart_eyes: the forum more than my laptop with Endeavour!

10

I think it’s best to try a system based on a WM rather than on a complete DE. Why don’t try enos i3 or enos bspwm editions?

You can use this link to install i3 edition and our WiKi link here. And you can use this link to install our bspwm community edition.

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11

That’s what I love about Arch. As soon as you get into DE first time you only need 2 very long yay and pacman commands to chain up all packages to be installed in less than 5 minutes. EOS takes 7-8 mins. So useful to note all packages along the journey of EOS to add to the reinstall list.

Everything you have is on your dropbox. Nothing to fear! So break away

12

I’m not that expert, but when I reinstalled I selected BTRFS, I believe BTRFS (perhaps +TimeShift), can fix whatever I break :roll_eyes:?

I don’t know (yet).

13

I just re-installed Xfce yesterday evening, honestly i can’t tell the difference in “responsiveness”/“quickness” between Plasma & Xfce. IF there’s a difference i can’t see it lol.

14

May be your machine is more powerful, more RAM.
My machine is:

date: 04/26/2012
Dual Core model: Intel Core i5-3210M
cache: L2: 3 MiB
Graphics:  Device-1: Intel 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics driver
4 GB RAM

I guess on my machine if I added another 4 GB RAM I wont have this sluggishness.

Just curious, whats yours?

15

And here I was going to make a smart**s suggestion that the best way to speed up XFCE is to put it on a faster machine! :grin:

I run it OTOB mode (nearly) on machines from 2008 on (mostly AMD) and it is quite quick on all of them, actually. No perceptible difference (though it might be measurable) in turning off effects etc - there aren’t very many! And they probably are affected more by GPU than CPU at that…

Good luck!

16

there is sure some difference, but you would not notice by using them, you
would have to make an htop comparison…
anyhow KDE wins :grinning:

17

There is no making Xfce faster otherwise you need faster more powerful hardware as it doesn’t get any better than this. Of course unless you are on KDE. :rofl:

18

You can always use XFCE with openbox, thats pretty zippy but requires some setup.

19

Honestly, I’ve come to be of the belief that replacing any HDDs with SDDs will give you the biggest overall boost until you hit very graphics-intensive programs.

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20

Well, I feel like a fool; I’m pretty sure I run Gnome on less than this (older, anyway) with no complaints about speed.

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