Just feeling like a little KDE.

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wove
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Just feeling like a little KDE.

Post by wove »

It has been a while since I have used KDE. And well what is more KDE than Neon. I thought it would be fun to try it out on my 2008 17 inch MacBook Pro. It was released i in April 2008 and so to celebrate its recent birthday it got a fresh install of KDE Neon. The original purchaser of this machine was a music professor to be used as a DAW, so it is a fully maxed out edition of Apple's most expensive laptop of the era.

By today's metrics it is definately at the bottom end, yet it does marginally hang in there. Neon installed without any troubles beyond taking a really long time. The 1920X1200 17inch screen is still drop dead beautful. Apple does not have a num pad on its big lap tops, instead devoting the space to big speakers, and as something of a real oddity it has a down firing sub-woofer. I am currently listening to a jazz station somewhere in France using Elisa and it sounds very nice.

I am posting this from Konqueror. The system monitor tells me I am sucking the life out of the beast and indeed it is getting hot on my lap. I am sure I would be getting better preformance running Neon in Gnome Boxes on Endless on my much newer laptop. But it would not be anywhere near as much fun.
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crosscourt
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Re: Just feeling like a little KDE.

Post by crosscourt »

Ive run Neon on my Dell E6400 when I had it which is also from 2008 and it ran quite well so it must be something about the Apple system ,as Im not that familiar with Apple products.
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wove
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Re: Just feeling like a little KDE.

Post by wove »

I have found that distros based on Ubuntu 22.04 boot run and install on the machine. However there is a lot of variation in how well they run. Bodhi does very well. PopOS is not at all bad considering it is a pretty heavy OS. Budgie, Kabuntu and Neon are the poorest of the lot.

The system's max RAM is 4GB, Budgie, Kubuntu and Neon all use 2GB of that just booting to the desktop. PopOS comes in ~800MB, and Bodhi gets to the sesktop with 250MB. Also Budgie, Kubuntu and Neon hold the processor at ~50% usage just sittling at the desktop. PopOS, Bohdi and Ubuntu itself has about 15% processor usage at the desktop.

There is a good deal of difference in how the distros use and see the hardware. The systen has a Broadcom trackpad (I did not even know Broadcom made trackpads). With Neion the trackpad is a smooth and nice as it is with the Mac OS. While Ubuntu, Pop, Bodhi and Kubuntu it is a jerky and laggy experience.

All the distros are excellent with power management.and all recognize the Mac keyboard and all the special keys work properly. The light sensors for both screen and keybaord brightness work correctly. Ubuntu and Pop pickup the need for drivers for the broadcom wireless and install them, the other distros do not. None of the distros do all that well with the screen with the screen pretty washed out. The panel is a 1900 X1200 IPS panel, which at the time was a $600 extra on the laptop. (It is safe to has that Apple customers have more money that sense. Why would you purchase a leptop to be used as a DAW and then spend $600 to upgrade the screen?)
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crosscourt
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Re: Just feeling like a little KDE.

Post by crosscourt »

Kubuntu and Neon with my E6400 used around 500-700mbs of memory. KDE has always been more lean than some of my other DEs.
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