2D Also Bad For Ubuntu Unity Against KDE, GNOME, LXDE, Xfce

Written by Michael Larabel in Software on 11 September 2012 at 01:37 AM EDT. Page 6 of 6. 14 Comments.
Intel 2D Ubuntu 12.10 SNA UXA Desktops
Intel 2D Ubuntu 12.10 SNA UXA Desktops
Intel 2D Ubuntu 12.10 SNA UXA Desktops

At least Ubuntu's default Unity desktop was working out fairly well for the GTK2-based GtkPerf benchmark, but it wasn't throughout all GTK widget operations to make it the overall fastest GTK desktop.

Intel SNA for the different desktops tended to be faster than UXA, which is certainly expected and of no surprise after all the Intel "Sandy Bridge New Acceleration" benchmarks on Phoronix up to this point. Overall, when it came to the 2D benchmarks for Unity, KDE, GNOME Shell, GNOME Classic, Xfce, and LXDE, the lighter-weight Xfce and LXDE desktops ran the fastest. This is similar to last week's OpenGL benchmark of the different Linux desktops where the default Ubuntu desktop tended to be in last place. However, with GTK and other select 2D work, Unity didn't fair quite as bad for the non-3D test profiles used in this article.

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Michael Larabel

Michael Larabel is the principal author of Phoronix.com and founded the site in 2004 with a focus on enriching the Linux hardware experience. Michael has written more than 20,000 articles covering the state of Linux hardware support, Linux performance, graphics drivers, and other topics. Michael is also the lead developer of the Phoronix Test Suite, Phoromatic, and OpenBenchmarking.org automated benchmarking software. He can be followed via Twitter, LinkedIn, or contacted via MichaelLarabel.com.