KDE SC 4.4 Preview

Dude no, I mean its easy if you don't wanna do anything and just use the desktop distros, personally i've done a bunch of shit with it, but lately i've just used Windows 7 because i'm too much of a gamer.

and yes I agree, its much better as a command line server, great for specific use.

@historyiseverything it much better for not just CLi server, but server in genrel. i would never USE M$ server, it just isn't good enough in comparison.

my kernel is next for ICC, i use Zen-kernel with Fedora 12.
right now i barely break 120meg of RAM + use very low CPU when idle - like 3-6% CPU with BFS scheduler too.
i use compiz + gnome + dockbarX. really good optimization!

once Linuxdna provide 32bit patches for v2.6.32, i will Patch Zen to use ICC and get an even faster kernel & modules. my laptop for being old, is surprisingly already a speed demon, i have a really wicked desktop - i used to use OSX more, now i use fedora mostly.

That's cool, I'll look up to it. But I guess I won't be into compiling my own kernel, since it takes huge time. I don't want to spend 1 - 1.5 hours in front of the computer just to get a 1 second advantage on boot. Btw, once for fun, I installed ubuntu minimum and my desktop spent 80 MB of ram when idle, maybe you want to try that too. using arch linux with kde4 now, I am pretty happy with that.

@sonay1986 i get way more than a one-second boot speed increase, and overall performance is much better, i can get into much deeper setting with total granular control. my machine performs much much better. i don't use ubuntu only fedora and gentoo, arch is really good to though..

and im not talking about minimum install, im talking fully-blown flashy as hell and a speed pig with optimal performance. which i need for multimedia/proaudio

@triplesquarednine by minimum install i meant i installed all the stuff from the core by myself, that way, I didn't have most of the binaries that comes with ubuntu standart. so all the fancy stuff + a very powerful desktop was possible with 80 MB rams. you might be pretty right about compiling your own kernel, since I have no experience. But all i heard about compiling your own kernel was about boot time and it takes only 2-3 seconds(tops) to load the pre-compiled kernel on boot.

@sonay1986 ppl who think the main beneift of a custom kernel is boot time, are dumb. it is for performance/optimization.
my gentoo box uses 90meg but my fedora requires more but actually is better for what i use it for. ubuntu has never cut it for me, not even close. but i have no diea why ubuntu seems to be shittier, it just does.

if you can setup the Intel C++ compiler, there are guides on the net, and patches provided by LinuxDNA - they are the guys who ported the linux kernel & software from GCC to ICC.

it isn't that difficult, if you can compile things yourself and can add ICC to your path. you can get a non-commercial license for intel's ICC.

i do know how to optimize but i am better with GCC, i required help to use ICC, but it works great!

i'll post some links (i just gotta look around again..)

nobody makes custom kernels these days, if they are not nerdy, then it's no problem. for distributions like ubuntu, almost every program is compiled and many little GUI applications are written for the CLI needs and drivers mostly don't need to be compiled as they're packaged and shipped in os. I think you're magnifying a very small group

@sonay1986 i think more ppl use custom kernels than you think, i get atleast 20 emails a week from people asking for help. who need a better kernel than any stock kernel in a distro provides. it becomes obvious when you are doing things like proaudio or multimedia. the performance differences can be quite staggering.
but for joe-blow who doesn't use it for more than common task, you r probably correct. :)