is Xfce getting too bloated ?

[David Fraser]

purslow at sympatico.ca wrote:

>i just ran a test of Xfce 4.1.90 against KDE 3.3.0
>on my Gentoo system with an  AMD XP 2500+  &  512 MB  memory:
>both are set up with  10  desktops (workspaces) & should auto-start
> 2  Konsoles, Mutt, Lynx, Konqueror, Gvim, Gqview, Gkrellm, Kmahjongg ;
>Xfce is also set to launch KDE services (as defined in the settings window),
>which are started automatically by KDE itself.
>
>after a reboot in each case & timed from entering the start command
>to appearance of a desktop (tested by clicking a workspace switcher button),
>KDE took  30 seconds  to start, while Xfce took  32 seconds .
>
>it may be of interest that KDE takes longer to close down
>--  12 seconds  against  4 seconds  -- , which suggests
>that KDE may be more careful about storing session-management information.
>
>also, the Xfce session-manager is unpredictable about what it starts:
>sometimes it doesn't start Konqueror, sometimes not Mutt (only a 3rd Konsole).
>i don't know whether this would also happen with KDE if i used it often.
>both correctly started all applications in the test above.
>  
>
Two things may be relevant:
- if you're autostarting konsole and konquerer as well as gnome apps 
then you have to load all the kde background libraries and some gnome 
stuff anyway, so you're losing a lot of the xfce advantage before you 
start. try comparing with no autostart for a better comparison
- there is a apparently a problem with the menu parsing thats horribly 
slow now, if you have a menu on the panel

David