KDE 4 vs. GNOME 3: An Early Comparison

How will GNOME 3 compare to KDE 4? The picture is still emerging, since GNOME 3's official release is still months away. However, with GNOME Shell available as a preview in the latest GNOME releases, a general outline is starting to be visible.

Of course, some elements cannot be compared yet. It would be unfair, for instance, to compare panels in any detail, because in the previews GNOME Shell's panel has neither applets nor configurations. Nor, for that matter, can much be said yet about the upcoming KDE 4.6, which should be the latest version when GNOME 3.0 is released.

Yet such limitations still leave general performance and design issues to talk about. And they are worth starting to think about -- and not just for the purposes of reigniting the old KDE vs. GNOME flame wars about which desktop is better. Clearly, the choices available for Linux users are about to change drastically.

General Performance

Currently, GNOME Shell either starts from the command line, or else replaces Metacity window manager as GNOME starts. Either way, you cannot get an accurate sense of how quickly GNOME Shell loads. Subjectively, it seems to load roughly twice as fast as KDE, but since part of GNOME is already loaded when it starts, that impression is probably misleading.

Once running, GNOME Shell opens non-desktop specific applications like OpenOffice.org or Firefox 10-20 percent faster in GNOME Shell than in KDE. GNOME Shell also loads KDE applications 5-10 percent faster than KDE loads GNOME applications, except when some additional piece of software needs to be started -- for instance, when Akonadi server needs to start for KMail. In addition, GNOME Shell shuts down about twice as quickly as KDE.

This speed difference means that GNOME Shell runs extremely well on a netbook with a single gigabyte of RAM. By contrast, on the same machine, KDE 4.5 -- currently the latest version -- performs sluggishly. Another gigabyte or two vastly improves KDE's performance, but makes GNOME Shell even more responsive.

Adding layers to the desktop

Both GNOME Shell and KDE add layers to the traditional desktop. With Folder View, KDE makes maintaining and changing desktop icons a matter of a few mouse clicks, while both desktops emphasize virtual desktops or workspaces far more than in earlier release series.

If you choose, you can ignore virtual desktops in KDE, and work in much the same way as people have since desktops were first added to computers. But, unless you add a number of icons, GNOME Shell's placement of the menu with the virtual workspaces in a separate screen makes ignoring virtual workspaces nearly impossible. Whenever you click Activities in the panel to reach the menu, you are confronted with a screen in which must of the display is devoted to virtual workspaces.

For most people, I suspect, the temptation will be to go ahead and use the GNOME Shell workspaces, even if at first they are disinclined.

Next Page: more KDE 4 vs. GNOME 3