Which DE is the most stable with Manjaro on 11th gen i5 ?And which one works better with dual screens?

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I’ve been thinking of getting a new laptop I choose a 14 inch model with an eleventh gen i5 maybe with or without iris graphics and saved it on emag

Now I’m wondering since I had some odd issues with gnome what should be more stable: Xfce or Kde ?

I always heard that xfce is the most stable but I want to ask here too .
Also , which one does work better and has a lower change of failing when I plug a projector/another screen in it (I’m asking since I may have to give some presentations for my university )

Here’s one of my choices

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Hi @Chris2kn,

I’m using KDE personally with dual monitors and have absolutely 0 problems with it. So that’s what I’d recommend.

$ inxi --width -G
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GM206 [GeForce GTX 960] driver: nvidia v: 515.65.01
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.4 driver: X: loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia
resolution: 1: 2560x1080~60Hz 2: 2560x1080~60Hz
OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA
515.65.01

Hope this helps!

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xfce is more stable but you have to decide if it is acceptable. kde is more flexible but it isn’t stable and often buggie.

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I see , but this is not a laptop, thanks for the answer anyway

Do you use 2 screens ?

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You are right this isn’t a laptop. I much prefer a desktop. But maybe that’s just me.

Indeed. Dual monitor, 25" @ 2560x1080 resolution.

Edit:

Perhaps this makes it clearer:

$ inxi -Gxxx
Graphics:
Device-1: NVIDIA GM206 [GeForce GTX 960] vendor: Gigabyte driver: nvidia
v: 515.65.01 arch: Maxwell pcie: speed: 2.5 GT/s lanes: 16 bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 10de:1401 class-ID: 0300
Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 21.1.4 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: X:
loaded: nvidia gpu: nvidia display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 5120x1080 s-dpi: 97 s-size: 1341x283mm (52.80x11.14")
s-diag: 1371mm (53.96")
Monitor-1: DVI-D-0 pos: right res: 2560x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 97
size: 673x284mm (26.5x11.18") diag: 730mm (28.76") modes: N/A
Monitor-2: HDMI-0 pos: primary,left res: 2560x1080 hz: 60 dpi: 97
size: 673x284mm (26.5x11.18") diag: 730mm (28.76") modes: N/A
OpenGL: renderer: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960/PCIe/SSE2 v: 4.6.0 NVIDIA
515.65.01 direct render: Yes
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Some might argue that the most stable DE is the one we don’t provide … :crazy_face:

Maybe we can help if you get specific on what kind of issues you had.
My installed Gnome on bare metal is 10GiB less than my KDE Plasma install (that i still prefer due to my workflow), yet both perform well on all my tasks and all my applications.
XFCE is “boringly” stable, highly customizable and light, reason why is still our flagship.

Of course all DE’s can break when overmilked. Either way, you can’t go wrong installing any of them.

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I would recommend KDE, I have little to no experience with all the other various DE, but from my experience KDE has good integrated features all around. When I tried Manjaro XFCE I found it was kinda “crude”, bare-bone, not much bells and whistle. KDE out of the box should have all you need (plug a monitor, it asks what you want to do, do exclusive laptop or external screen, duplicate on external screen, and so on… like on the image below)

Screenshot_20220903_115532

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The issue I had was that when booting the os , I got past login screen and all the things were frozen but I could move the mouse cursor(it felt like a dead touch screen, but I was always using keyboard+mouse)

The only thing I could do was to alt+f1 and shut down and start it again

After starting it again it worked perfectly, as if nothing happened before…

It was probably the creepiest Linux bug I’ve ever seen , it happened like 5 times in total

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“If you want to get in trouble, follow the bubble.”

…these are highly opinionated views from kde-fanboys.

…this is not really a question, or is it? If so, choose xfce.

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There’s really one one who can answer that question - that is you.

The reason being - each and every system differs and the use-case differs - so test the system with a live ISO and draw your own conclusion.

I’d recommend avoiding Nvidia GPU.

The combination of Intel CPU and AMD GPU works well.

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Ok , thanks , I’ll take Xfce… I was kinda undecided

I just hope that the intel igpu that I listed in the link above will work with xfce and be able to connect to a projector or secondary screen

Last xfce I’ve tried was with Ubuntu, it was like windows xp , but with dark mode

Anyway, Manjaro did a great job making it look better, it’s almost like windows 7 without aero :smile:

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…that’s doable, in fact it is more “bare-bone” in comparison with plasma, but it is modular and “thankful stable” once it is set up to your needs.

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KDE on my dual monitor lappy. Cavaet: you will need a 3rd party compositor if you use the Nouveau driver. But xcompmgr works great.

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…and not much to go wrong. The advantage is xfce runs fine on (older?) iGPU, whereas gnome/kde usually need a dedicated graphics card (and driver!) to function properly.

I use it on real dog hardware ( :rofl: Reine Neugierde : Wie schnell ist mein / euer Rechner? - #7 by 6x12 ) with AMD RS880M Mobility Radeon HD 4225/4250 driving an external hdmi monitor with the option to deactivate the laptop monitor automatically if the external one is on. Has worked solidly since installing about 3 years ago.

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Mint xfce works well on my other Dell 1720 laptop for Netflix. Now at Vanessa 21. It is clearly not as sophisticated as KDE though.

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I have god experience using Gnome with a laptop and dual screens. The point that often broke KDE for me is that the laptop has often changing monitor configurations. In a dock, using Monitor A, stand-alone, then attach a projector via VGA and whatnot…

Xfce can store different session configurations, but I found Xfce’s standard interface features (not the themes) too limiting - it’s closest feature match is Windows XP, not Windows 7 or 10.

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There’s an attempt to fix it in wayland.

Take Xfce for a spin and if you ever get bored with it, consider testing kde, openbox, or even gnome. You don’t need to use any of them for the rest of your life, you always will have plenty of choices.

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