Qt/GTK Speed On Unity/KDE/Xfce/LXDE/GNOME/Razor

Shared earlier today were OpenGL game benchmarks under different Linux desktops. Now to complement those earlier results are 2D performance tests under Unity, KDE, GNOME Shell, Xfce, LXDE, and Razor-qt.

From the same Intel HD 4000 "Ivy Bridge" system after completing the OpenGL tests this morning, some 2D performance tests were carried out. Past testing has revealed the 2D performance also fluctuates a great deal depending upon the desktop environment / window manager.

The desktop configuration, per the same configuration as this morning's Intel OpenGL Linux testing:

- Unity 6.6.0 with Compiz.
- KDE 4.10.00 with KWin while opting for the option of disabling desktop effects on full-screen windows.
- GNOME Shell 3.6.3.1 with Mutter.
- Xfce 4.10 without compositing.
- LXDE 0.5.12.
- The Razor-qt desktop with OpenBox 3.5.0.

The 2D tests today were also done using the Intel SNA back-end given the results earlier this week: SNA Delivers Huge Gains Over UXA For Intel "Gen5" and SNA Sandy Bridge Is Quick To Beat UXA Too.

Just like the other quick end-of-month tests, the results in full plus all of the other system hardware/software information is available on this OpenBenchmarking.org page: 1302281-FO-INTEL2DSN69. Reproducing these same tests on your own software/hardware is as easy as running phoronix-test-suite benchmark 1302281-FO-INTEL2DSN69 thanks to our automated open-source testing framework.

For the Qt4-based testing, running Xfce 4.10 led to the greatest performance. Also holding their ground fairly well against Xfce were Unity with Compiz and LXDE while KDE, LXDE, and Razor-Qt were further back.

The GTK2 results were much more mixed across the different desktops / window managers.

See more at OpenBenchmarking.org.