Saw someone shitting on xfce in another thread and praising lxqt as being lighter weight so decided to actually compare the two.I installed both DEs on separate installs of three different operating systems (Arch, Debian, and Fedora). I'll post exactly what I did in case someone wants to reproduce my steps and verify, alongside screenshots I took of the outcomes.All VM's had 2 cores and 4GB of memory.All VM's were updated and the only extra installed software was fastfetch and cowsay.Notice the difference in WM used by the default lxqt meta packages across all 3 distros.
>>109135493First -alphabetically- is arch:Used the June snapshot.Arch's Lxqt version was using wayland, Xfce was on X11.Pacstrap command for both installs had the following arguments:Pacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware networkmanager vim lxqt sddm fastfetch cowsay grub efibootmgr sudo man-pagesPacstrap -K /mnt base linux linux-firmware networkmanager vim xfce4 lightdm fastfetch cowsay grub efibootmgr sudo man-pagesUsed EXT4.I enabled the networkmanager daemon and the display manager service on both installs.XFCE was idling at around 568MB and LXQT was idling at about 550MB.
>>109135507Second is debian:Debian 13.Both DE's were on X11.Used netinstall and only installed the DE without the Debian desktop environment packages, so only the DE and the standard system utilities were checked during the install.Used EXT4.XFCE was idling around 620MB and LXQT was idling at around 614MB.
>>109135515Last -and absolutely least- is fedora:Fedora 44.Fedora's Lxqt version was using wayland, Xfce was on X11.Updated after installation, rebooted and waited a bit (roughly 3 mins) for boot up to cool down.Not sure it matters but fedora defaults to btrfs.XFCE was idling at ~970MB, and LXQT was idling at a little over 1000MB.
>>109135525Forgot the image, sorry.
>>109135535What did we learn here?The differences between lxqt and xfce are fairly negligible and the choice of operating system has a larger impact on memory since different operating systems come preconfigured with different services running out of the box.Also LXQT being super lightweight and uncontended is false, it's in a similar weight category as XFCE.I hope this isn't coming off as an attack on lxqt I actually like and use both, just that there are weird misconceptions regarding these DEs.So whether you're a bird or a rat, just be glad you're neither a furry nor a footfag.
>>109135546>footfagwhat if I'm using foot terminal
>>109135609How is foot btw? Is it like st and urxvt terminals where they're barebones and unusable out of the box? Or does it come with sane defaults?
>>109135699it just werks ootb and it's pretty minimalalso there is a server mode
>>109135493the only bad part in xfce is theGOD FUCKING DAMN GNOME FILE PICKER, I HATE IT WITH THE POWER OF THOUSAND SUNS!!!
>>109135827Why don't they make their own file picker? Is it difficult?
>>109135493I tried liking lxqt but everything looks ugly no matter what I did. I tried using a w95 theme but for some weird reason using a bitmap font (taken from a Windows iso) made some parts of the DE unusable. The settings program would display a blank window, and the file manager was resized to some absurd dimensions like 17k x 20k with no way to fix. Arch btw. At least the rat can be made to look decent enough pretty easily.>>109135827There's a patched version of gtk3 with proper thumbnail support for the file picker. You could also try using the KDE's file picker or the one from LXQT. Alternatively, there's pikeru toohttps://github.com/dvhar/pikeru
>>109136052amazing, thank you for the picker alternatives. I will study their methods and finally replace the unruly gnome one.
>>109135493>VMholy retard
>>109136215if the VM has an effect on ram usage wouldn't that effect all of them making the comparison relatively accurate?
good effortthread
>>109135493Nice comparison. I do love xue, and it's what I use daily, but I'm planning my exit, even if not towards the bird. Keeping at the newest GTK puts the rat downstream from the open sewage that is GNOME.
>>109135507Notice how the arch logo in the lxqt (left) installation is wider, and hence the fat archguy is even fatter.
>>109136280This. Grats, OP.
>>109135493As a current user of neither, it's surprising that LxQt is lighter with how much people shill Xfce here. How much of the difference is due to using QTerminal vs whatever Xfce has though? You probably should've tested with the same one.>>109135525>>109135535Good god, FEDora is so bloated.>>109136280Yes, thank you for something worth reading.
>>109136350I used the default terminal for both, didn't think about the effect of the terminal desu. But this way it should reflect average use of the DEs since I assume most people don't tend to stray away from defaults.
>>109136361>But this way it should reflect average use of the DEs since I assume most people don't tend to stray away from defaults.That's fair, but if people are already choosing a non-default desktop, picking a non-default terminal isn't much more.
>>109135493Good to know, i use xfce because it was basically the first i tried and found out it being good enough to not bother swapping.
>>109136267You're supposed to measure cpu time and run it on bare metal.
>>109135493
>>109135546Nice of you to figure it out and share it, but I'll stay with GNOME
>>109135535>>109135515>>109135507What makes you think that RAM usage is a metric?
