The Linux Experiment

The Linux platform has an absolute wealth of what I would call alternative software. Many of these applications were built simply to fill in a gap or provide a missing function but since then a real culture of alternative software has emerged as well. What do I mean by this? Well there are many developers who have decided that instead of putting their time and resources into building up a pre-existing application they would rather try building something similar, but different, from scratch themselves. This is both a strength and a weakness for the Linux platform overall because while it means there is always constant innovation many of the applications lack a sense of development and usability maturity about them.

 

One such alternative in the world of file and web browsers is Konqueror. This classic KDE application has been around since 1996 and wears many different hats from file browser and web browser to image and document viewer, etc.

As a bit of background – I only really played around with Konqueror briefly a few years ago, so when I installed it on my Linux Mint 18 Cinnamon computer I was interested in seeing how it performed. Unfortunately when I launched the application the first thing that greeted me was a half-broken interface…

I’m not sure if the missing images were as a result of me not running it on KDE but this wasn’t the best first impression all the same.

Next I decided to take a look through the various settings and menus to see what options were available. Most of it was pretty standard fare but I was intruiged by what appeared to be the option to change the web browser engine from KHTML to… well I’m not really sure to be honest as there was only the one option.

Being a web browser I figured what better way to run it through its paces than load up a few web sites and see how things go. For the most part Konqueror proved to be an adequate, if not slow, web browser but I also ran into a number of rendering problems along the way. For example while watching videos on YouTube none of the playback controls were visible. Another time I visited a website and there was a weird white square over top of one of the menus.

When I tried loading up a popular news website Konqueror gave up and completely stop responding. None of these are reasons to recommend anyone actually use this browser over something like Firefox or Chrome.

So if Konqueror isn’t a great web browser how does it compare as a file browser? The short answer is even worse. I tried browsing to my home directory and instead just got what appears to be a low-level file system/type error…

If it isn’t obvious by now I think it’s safe to state the obvious: I would not recommend using Konqueror as an alternative to either one of the mainstream web browsers (i.e. Firefox, Chrome, etc.) or standard file browsers.

It’s been a while since I’ve used KDE, however with the recent rapid (and not always welcome) changes going on in the other two main desktop environments (GNOME 3 and Unity) and the, in my opinion, feature stagnation of environments like Xfce and LXDE I decided to give KDE another shot.

My goal this time is to write up a series of quick reviews of KDE as presented as an overall user experience. That means I will try and stick to the default applications for getting my work done. Obviously depending on the distribution you choose you may have a different set of default KDE applications, and that’s fine. So before you ask, no I won’t be doing another write up for KDE distribution X just because you think its ‘way better for including A instead of B’. I’m also going to try and not cover what I consider more trivial things (i.e. the installer/installation process) and instead focus on what counts when it comes to using an operating system day-to-day.

Rekonq

The default web browser in the distribution I chose is not Konqueror but rather its WebKit cousin Rekonq. Where Konqueror uses KHTML by default and WebKit as an option, Rekonq sticks to the more conventional rendering engine used by Safari and Chrome.

Rekonq is a very minimalistic looking browser to the point where I often thought I accidentally started up Chrome instead.

From my time using it, Rekonq seems to be a capable browser although it is certainly not the speediest, nor does it sport any features that I couldn’t find elsewhere. One thing it does do very nicely is with its integration into the rest of the KDE desktop. This means that the first time you visit YouTube or some other Flash website you get a nice little prompt in the system tray alerting you of the option to install new plugins. If you choose to install the plugin then a little window appears telling you what it is downloading and installing for you, completely automatically. No need to visit a vendor’s website or go plugin hunting online.

Like most other KDE applications Rekonq also allows for quite a bit of customization, although I found its menus to be very straightforward and not nearly as intimidating as some other applications.

I did notice a couple of strange things while working with Rekonq that I should probably mention. First off while typing into a WordPress edit window none of the shortcut keys (i.e. Ctrl+B = bold) seemed to work. I also found that I couldn’t perform a Shift+Arrow Key selection of the text, instead having to use Ctrl+Shift+Arrow Key which highlights an entire word at a time. At this time I’m not sure what other websites may suffer from similar irregularities so while Rekonq is a fine browser in its own right, you may want to keep another one around just in case.

While I haven’t found any real show-stoppers with Rekonq, I still can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something. I don’t know how to describe it other than I think I would feel safer using a more mainstream web browser like Firefox, Chrome or even Opera. But like any software, your experience may vary and I would certainly never recommend against trying Rekonq (or even Konqueror). Who knows, you may find out that it is your new favorite web browser.

Recently while browsing the Internet I noticed that Mozilla Firefox was taking up an awfully large amount of RAM. In fact it’s RAM use continued to grow even though I had not navigated to any new website or even touched it at all! Being a KDE user I decided to try the same website within Konqueror, the KDE web browser that everyone seems to toss to the side right after install. To my amazement Konqueror seemed to render the same website, using much less RAM, and better yet it’s RAM use remained static. Perhaps there was something more to this ‘throw-away’ browser than I had first thought. And thus began my idea for a series of comparisons of four of the most popular Linux web browsers: Firefox, Chromium, Konqueror and Epiphany.

Note: The numbers you are going to see below are purely anecdotal and are based on my own personal experiences, which might not represent your own.  For the record I am running Kubuntu 9.10 with the 2.6.31-19 kernel.

Packages I had to install

This is simply a list of packages I installed for each browsers to sort of give you an idea of what to expect.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
firefox-3.5, firefox-3.5-branding	konqueror	chromium-browser	ephiphany-browser, epiphany-browser-data

Startup speed (from a cold start – i.e. from reboot)

To test this I rebooted the computer and then opened the browsers for the first time.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
~4.5 seconds	~2.1 seconds	~3.7 seconds	~2.8 seconds

Startup speed (from a cached start – i.e. after opening and closing the program)

To test this I rebooted the computer, then opened the browsers for the first time and closed them. Then I opened them a second time and recorded the time.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
~1.5 seconds	~1.2 seconds	~1.1 seconds	~1.2 seconds

Memory usage (about:blank)

This is how much memory the browser took to display the web page in brackets. The memory inside of the brackets is the amount of shared memory each browser uses. This of course could change depending on your system and setup. Where there are multiple numbers separated by plus signs it means that the browser spawns multiple processes which each take up memory.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
24.6MiB (22.7MiB)	10.8MiB (20.8MiB)	6.6MiB (21.5MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.6MiB) + 2.3MiB (6.4MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB)	9.4MiB (20.5MiB)

Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org)

For this test I first loaded the browser to the homepage, in this case about:blank, and then navigated to the website www.kubuntu.org. In Konqueror’s case it spawned a few small KIO processes which I assume did the actually downloading of the webpage. I have averaged their values below.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
35.7MiB (24.1MiB)	22.6MiB (23.3MiB) + 4 x kio_http: 5.05MiB (6.2MiB)	7.9MiB (18.2MiB) + 13.6MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB)	18.3MiB (23.1MiB)

Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com)

For this test I once again started with the about:blank homepage and then opened the websites in different tabs.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
41.7MiB (24.6MiB)	30.5MiB (24.0MiB) + 4 x kio_http: 5.3MiB (6.4MiB)	9.0MiB (28.8MiB) + 11.4MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 6.8MiB (11.0MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.5MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB)	21.8MiB (24.8MiB)

Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com) 2 minutes later

For this test I started with the above test and then waited two minutes and re-recorded the memory usage. This was to see if the browsers suffer from any sort of memory leaks, something Firefox has been famous for over the years.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
38.45MiB (24.6MiB) – a decline of about 0.03MiB.	30.7MiB (24.0MiB) – a growth of about 0.002MiB/second. The kio_http’s stayed the same.	13.2MiB + (20.8MiB) + 11.4MiB (11.3MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 6.8MiB (11.0MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.5MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second.	21.8MiB (24.8MiB) – no change

Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com | ubuntu.com)

Same as above but with one more tab.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
46.0MiB (24.9MiB)	45.1MiB (24.0MiB) + 6 x kio_http: 5.22MiB (6.4MiB)	9.3MiB (24.4MiB) + 14.2MiB (16.2MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.4MiB) + 13.5MiB (11.2MiB) + 11.6MiB (10.8MiB) + 1.6 (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB)	29.0MiB (24.9MiB)

Memory usage (about:blank -> kubuntu.org | google.com | bing.com | ubuntu.com) 2 minutes later

Same as above but with one more tab.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
77.8MiB (24.9MiB) – a growth of about 0.27MiB/second	50.2MiB (24.0MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second. The kio_http’s stayed the same.	9.3MiB (24.4MiB) + 23.7MiB (16.2MiB) + 9.3MiB (11.4MiB) + 13.5MiB (11.2MiB) + 11.6MiB (10.8MiB) + 1.6MiB (1.7MiB) + 1.5MiB (7.6MiB) – a growth of about 0.08MiB/second	33.2MiB (24.9MiB) – a growth of about 0.04MiB/second

Noticeable rendering glitches in pages viewed

None of the browsers had rendering glitches except for Konqueror. In Konqueror Bing’s search bar was offset from where it should be and on Kubuntu’s website the header image was overlapping text that it shouldn’t have.

Acid 2 test (http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html)

The (now old) Acid 2 test.

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
100%	100%	100%	100%

Acid 3 test (http://acid3.acidtests.org/)

How well did the browsers handle the Acid 3 test?

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
93%	89% (linktest failed)	100%	100%

SunSpider JavaScript Benchmark (http://www2.webkit.org/perf/sunspider-0.9/sunspider.html)

The classic JavaScript benchmark test!

Firefox	Konqueror	Chromium	Epiphany
Total: 2380.2ms Click here to see full results.	Total: 2940.2ms Click here to see full results.	Total: 445.2ms Click here to see full results.	Total: 794.8ms Click here to see full results.

Conclusion

Well there you have it. Rather than ‘rate’ each browser I’m going to leave it up to you to weigh the merits of each given the above information. Even though Firefox might not be the most technically superior browser it does have the advantage of being very popular and having an excellent add-on system. Then again Epiphany can use most of those add-ons as well. Chromium, based off of Google’s Chrome browser, is also a new favourite for a lot of people and is obviously the fastest in terms of JavaScript. Being a KDE user, Konqueror might be the best browser for you thanks to its infinite customization and uniform look.

Linux is all about personalization and I think everyone should extend that to the browser they use. Who knows you might just find one you like even more.

After the shitstorm that was Dana’s post about KDE, I figured I’d go into more details about how my day to day use is going.

Multiple Libraries Make Baby Jesus Cry
All the base system software in the Gentoo kdebase-meta package compiles against the QT4 libraries, but many of the optional packages still depend on QT3. Popular programs like KTorrent and AmaroK either still haven’t been updated or tagged in the Portage repository, so at any given time a desktop user will have programs running that use two separate graphical widget libraries. My level of use is such that I have programs running with GTK+, QT3 and QT4 on the same monitor – not to mention apps like Songbird that draw their own custom interface.

From an efficiency and system resource standpoint, this is really poor utilization. I have 4GB of RAM for intensive tasks such as music library organization, not to show slightly different scrollbars and window controls in every third application. Under GNOME 2.26, there was nowhere near this level of display potpourri with the default system utilities. (It also helps that Firefox is GTK+, which is close to the top-used app on my machine.)

Some Applications Just Suck
I’ve attempted to use all of the built-in KDE applications to combat the mismatched desktop effect, and often I’ll find them wanting compared to the GNOME or GTK+ equivalents. Dolphin seems like a very capable file manager, but it will lock up when hovering over some video thumbnails or seemingly randomly when in my home directory. (The rest of the system remains responsive, so it looks like Dolphin’s the culprit.) Konqueror is fast, but the configuration and settings are confusing to say the least – and without proper add-on/AdBlock Plus support, I can’t consider making it my primary browser.

Another example of application suck is ksnapshot, which is supposed to do what you think it would – take screen captures of active windows or the entire desktop. I made the unfortunate selection of selecting to capture a region, specifically the “Settings” menu in Konqueror. After selecting a nice 300×300 pixel area, pressing Enter to confirm the region did nothing. Escape did nothing, nor did any combination of mouse buttons. Since ksnapshot takes focus away from the entire desktop, it wasn’t possible to exit the application. I had to SSH in from another machine and manually kill the process to regain control.

Desktop Effects Are Nice
Once I’d mangled xorg.conf and set up my nVidia drivers in TwinView mode, I still ran into issues enabling the built-in KDE compositing effects. The command in Gentoo to learn is “eselect”, which when combined with “eselect opengl list” allows a display of all the possible OpenGL rendering engines. Apparently even when the nVidia drivers are enabled, one must specifically tell X to use the correct renderer.

The problem I’ve encountered is that while some effects are smooth as butter, such as moving Wobbly Windows, resizing them is delayed and causes display tearing. I have no idea what’s causing this, and the behaviour shouldn’t exist.

Going back to GNOME
As of tomorrow, I have no doubts that I’ll be returning to GNOME for regular desktop use. KDE has some compelling features but my experience with it has been less than ideal. I can’t afford to have my file browser lock up during regular use – and GNOME’s environment seems much more predictable.