>> I remember running KDE3 on "old" hardware, e.g. 256MB RAM >> and a 1ghz CPU. I've heard people say it works fine on 128MB >> RAM and 700mhz if you run a minimal install. I doubt many >> people would be using such hardware, but it's definitely >> possible and needs consideration. > > I have used KDE3 on my PI (with a 400 MHZ K6-III+) and PII machines. KDE3 > is usable but requires serious patience. Likewise Trinity. On the other > hand, NT4 is installed on both machines and run very fast. The PI has 256 > MB RAM and the PII 448 MB. > > There is a point of diminishing returns with tweaking the code base for > older hardware. On the other hand, if people run LXDE or Xfce on such > hardware then there will be unavoidable comparisons. Even if we draw a > line with older hardware, I believe we should focus attention on improving > performance. > > Tim mentioned in a previous thread something called tdeinit_phase1 that > eventually will improve the Trinity start time. That's good news. :) > >> My best suggestion (this will probably take several >> releases) is to see how much the code can be trimmed without >> removing functionality, possibly separate packages further >> for a sort of "old computer" install -- for example (though >> I can't say for sure, I personally never checked, don't take >> my word for it unless one of the devs can confirm), some of >> the libs from tdelibs probably wouldn't be needed for an >> absolute barebones system. It may also be good to try to >> separate functionality where possible. > > There probably are places we can trim code. For example, do we want to > continue supporting Cervisia, which is a KDE specific wrapper to CVS? I > don't know. > > Your comments run close to what I proposed a while ago: Trinity Light. The > focus there is primarily knowledge about build issues. People using older > hardware probably would not install tdesdk let alone build the package. > Trinity Light likely would not include that package or at most, only as an > optional package. > > Older hardware more than likely are standalone home or small-office > machines. If we had a wiki page addressing such build issues we could > offer a Trinity Light without sacrificing developer time toward tweaking > code. All we need is information and then let packagers handle the > details. Trinity Light is not something we support officially. That is, we > don't provide the packages, we provide the information needed to build > Trinity Light. We probably post to our web site that the basic Trinity > installation runs best with hardware of PIII or faster and 512 MB RAM. For > people wanting a lighter version we refer them to the build instructions > at the wiki. > > The wiki page would address which build options could be removed and why. > For example, building tdepim without sasl support builds a leaner package > and theoretically faster KMail, but probably is a bad idea because that > mechanism is how secure email logins are handled. > > My PI and PII qualify as old hardware and would serve as great test > environments for running Trinity Light. :) > > Darrell Just to jump in here, there is one use case for a lightweight DE that doesn't involve obsolete hardware: multiuser mainframe-type systems. When you have 50 users on one central server, each with a session that is being accessed via a remote desktop protocol such as VNC or even the X protocols, slight reductions in the overhead of each session make a big difference overall. Just something to think about in these odd times, when the personal computer is being "replaced" with a variant of the old central mainframe model.... Tim