Evaluating desktop environments for Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex)

In preparation for the release of Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibdex) I’ve been running several virtual machines with the beta OS. I’ve created 1 virtual server each for Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu. The latter 3 were created so that I could evaluate the different desktop environments in preparation for the upgrades of my own system as well as the systems of others. Kubuntu will be using KDE 4 and I was curious as to its performance and resource consumption. Xubuntu is aimed at computer with less resources but I’ve never seen a comparison between it and Ubuntu to know whether it is worthwhile. I started each server as a clone of Ubuntu Server and installed the desktop environment package (ubuntu-desktop, kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-desktop). I chose a couple of simple metrics about each desktop and came to some conclusions.

Notes:

• Installation was done in mid-September. The disk usage numbers could have changed between then and now due to shifting package dependencies and other changes.
• Memory usage was measured by logging in, opening a terminal, running htop for about 30 minutes, and recording the highest and lowest memory usage (equal to memused + swapused - buffers - cache using free).
• These are all on the amd64 architecture.

Ubuntu

• Installation
  • 867 new packages
  • 478MB of archives
  • 1997MB of disk space
• Memory Usage
  • 206-228MB

Kubuntu

• Installation
  • 672 new packages
  • 444MB
  • 1578MB
• Memory Usage
  • 355-360MB

Xubuntu

• Installation
  • 794 packages
  • 390MB of archives
  • 1599MB additional space
• Memory Usage
  • 185-209MB

Theoretical Light Desktop

Being somewhat disappointed with Xubuntu’s resource usage I decided to see what a relatively gnome-free xfce desktop might look like. I accomplished this by taking cloning my Xubuntu virtual machine and then purging this new virtual machine of gnome libraries with the command sudo apt-get remove --purge .*libgnome.*. I also replaced gdm with slim.

• Memory Usage
  • 135-138MB

Conclusions

Kubuntu - Well Kubuntu has been my distro of choice for probably close to 2 years. But with Ubuntu 8.10 I think I will abandon it. It’s resource usage is too high. Even though I recently upgraded my desktop to 6GB of RAM I still have a laptop with 512MB. Kubuntu runs abysmally on a virtual machine with 256MB of RAM. I also just don’t think KDE 4 looks that good. Perhaps it’s just the themes (the kdm login screen I have is ugly). Perhaps they’ve been updated since my installation. I have hopes for KDE 4 but I think it might take some time to really polish it.

Xubuntu - I found that Xubuntu only saved around 20-30MB of RAM over Ubuntu. I don’t really consider this to be significant enough to make the switch. The goal of Xubuntu seems to be to offer everything Ubuntu offers. The downside of that goal is that the desktop doesn’t use much less resources. A better goal, as illustrated by my theoretical light desktop test, might be to set a goal for memory savings (say somwhere between 50-100MB) over Ubuntu and then make some choices as to what to include. Yes the desktop may not be as user friendly but it would be much better suited for older systems with fewer resources.

Ubuntu - I think Ubuntu is looking like the clear winner for Intrepid Ibex. It is possible, though perhaps not advisable, to run Ubuntu on a machine with 256MB of RAM. I think that is a good goal for Ubuntu to hit. Furthermore with Ubuntu having the largest installed base it is the easiest for users to get help, tips, and suggestions. Therefore I find that there really needs to be a compelling reason to switch to another desktop environment. As it is the only recommendations I can make for Ubuntu 8.10 is to use the Ubuntu Gnome desktop or to strip the OS down and use an alternative desktop environment such as XFCE but without all the cruft of Xubuntu.