>Please note that this might not be all TDE's fault.  I have 
>noticed that
>the X server (and possibly the kernel itself) tends to get slower 
>and
>slower from release to release on old hardware.  In general, 
>locking
>myself to an old version of the kernel and Xorg on old hardware, 
>then
>compiling new software on top of those old versions, seems to give 
>halfway
>decent results.

I agree the problem is not TDE per se. I too seem to believe that 
Linux based systems get slower with each new release.

>However, if you are noticing that TDE is running slower than KDE 
>3.5.10 on
>the same X/kernel versions, then we have a problem. ;-)

I haven't tried such a test on my older systems. On newer Linux 
systems, compiling 3.5.10 now is all but impossible with all of the 
various upstream software changes that require patching. I 
experienced that compiling R14 on older Linux systems is impossible 
without modifying or updating several distro packages. That limits 
any 3.5.10->R14 comparison to a specific period of Linux OSs. 
Fortunately, I have a candidate here (I can compile 3.5.10 and R14 
on Slackware 13.1) and will give this a test a go.

That said what kinds of system or usability tests would be 
representative?

Darrell