-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [opensuse] upgrade
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 02:25:46 -0700
From: Tony Alfrey
On 06/15/2014 12:16 AM, Tony Alfrey wrote:
A real window manager now appears! Where did you find out about this trick? A complete transformation in performance in KDE. There is simply no comparison, it is now a usable machine! Needless to say, thanks very much!
So all your derogatory remarks about KDE/Linux were just that you had a configuration setting that your equipment couldn't handle. As I said KDE makes use of an incredible amount of eye-candy/glitz/bling.
My "derogatory remarks" were the same remarks that everyone made about Windows Vista when everyone discovered that they had to upgrade their video card, add more memory, or even worse, to make it work. The "configuration setting" was selected by the installation itself. Yes, the machine /is/ old, but I don't see anything anywhere that says that the processor (an Athlon XP) or the video card (a GeForce 6200) or the memory (2 GB) is not going to work. The simple fact is that I would still be using SuSE 9.1 if I could get the appropriate rpms for BerkeleyDB and Netatalk. Yes, the mistake is mine for not having a bullet-proof back-up of my system. Yes, there was a time when the big selling point of linux was that it would work on a minimal machine. What ever happened to that ethic? Does having all of that eye candy in KDE really make it better or does it just slow everything down? I'm certainly glad that Mr. van Hasstreght was enough of an expert about KDE to know that all I had to do was to use a simple keystroke combination to turn off all of this stuff.
Go to systemsettings -> desktop effect.
In the state that it was in, I couldn't even /get/ to system settings. I will look at that; I do need openGL to run variCAD. The video card that I got is an upgrade from the one I had, so it seems that this should not be a problem.
That first screen lets you turn it off on startup by default and you can explore all the possibly eye candy settings, the openGL settings, the type of compositing, and more.
As I mentioned, the "first screen" was broken and un-usable. Now that I have a screen that works, and a way to reduce the complexity, I can study it in detail.
There is a LOT there!
Some of it will make demands on the underlying hardware and device driver that may not be possible.
I mentioned problems I was having with late model nvidia. His performance openGL with the nvidia driver, but drag-and-drop problems. Low performance but working d-n-d with the open source driver. But the latter can't do much eye candy.
As to the 'where did you find it' question. Its in the documentation. http://opensuse-guide.org/kde.php
IIR it goes back a long way, to the origins of KDE4
http://fosswire.com/post/2009/01/quickly-disable-desktop-effects/ https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/436323-KDE-4-3-Proprietary-ATI-dr... Check the date
Yes, this goes back to suse 11.3 in 2002 https://www.suse.com/documentation/opensuse113/pdfdoc/art_kdequick_113/art_k...
Will it be necessary for every new user of KDE to go and study all of this documentation? And how would I have searched for the appropriate key words, such as "KDE seems totally broken"? This is precisely the type of argument that I wanted to avoid, and that which seemed to be prominent on the SuSE list. It will not attract new users. In fact, I thought I might go check out the linux counter http://linuxcounter.net/ It seems that the original enthusiasm for linux that attracted /me/ in 1999 may have cooled. Could it be exactly because of the sort of problems I encountered today? -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- Tony Alfrey tonyalfrey@earthlink.net "I'd Rather Be Sailing" -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org To contact the owner, e-mail: opensuse+owner@opensuse.org