That’s difficult to say from the distance. Could be a specific software version installed in one distro but not another which conflicts. Could be kernel configuration used by the different distros (and what kernel version used). I’ve also seen cases where windows drivers applied “magic sauce” while shutting down windows (I look here at you RealTek Audio crap). So if the “counter magic sauce” is not done (as windows driver does at booting) the device behaved wrong in linux until “reset”. Sometimes there are badly written background processes active (I look here at you Baloo on KDE… biggest performance hog ever).
Now when you keep the same distro and changing DEs causes no difference then chances are good the distro uses an old-aged kernel (more often the case) or a sub-optimal kernel configuration (less the case). Comparing the kernel versions used would be an interesting start.
Devaun uses Linux kernel version 4.9.0.6. I tried to install downgrade to a similar kernel version on Manjaro and Kubuntu (I couldn’t find the exact kernel version on neither of these distros so I installed either 4.9 and 4.9.1) and they might very slightly run better but still lag when using web browsers. The desktop environments generally don’t lag, including KDE (all though from time to time there is lag presented in KDE).
Nvidia only uses Binary drivers on Linux (the open source ones are very slow as they don’t support reclocking the GPU usually, even when they do still slower than it should be).
If you want a good experience on Linux then you should use Intel or AMD graphics period as both have excellent open source drivers that fully integrate with Linux. It doesn’t even make sense to complain about the Nvidia drivers as it is a solution that is not supported by the Linux kernel developers. Linus Torvalds even flipped Nvidia off publicly over these junk drivers.
Mainly browsers? That’s a tricky pandorra’s box there. The distro often has little impact on what’s going on inside except installing a specific version of the browser or one of the crappy engines underneath (WebKit… helps us god… nooooooo!). See if those versions are different. If it’s for example Firefox then Quantum or not Quantum makes you throw a huge Tantrum (Quantum is a lot faster).
Otherwise, as cb88 mentioned, nVidia is not a good choice to start with, despite the (wrong) myth going around that it would be better for Linux than AMD.
Haiku Beta 1 was a snapshot and code freeze. The only updates you’ll see to the Beta are security patches and other similar fixes.
Development towards Beta 2 and beyond happens in the master branch and is released as nightlies. This branch is no longer Beta 1. If you are using Beta 1, you won’t see most of the new bug fixes and features that have happened since the beta code freeze. If you wish to use these bug fixes and features, the solution is simple. Stop using Beta and switch to the nightlies.
I see. I guess it is a bit of a shame I can’t use Linux then, I was looking forward to it, all though I can still use Devaun as (I don’t get why) is the only distro that runs smoothly without nVidia drivers (all there may be lag in some areas but not as bad as any other distro).
I probably never buy another nVida cards again. They are too overrated and overpriced anyways. What about radeon graphics cards are they supported by Linux very well by the open source graphics drivers?
Yes AMD’s radeon graphics cards are some of the best supported, it typically only takes a few weeks/months months before distros have support for new cards and the drivers are fast.
Note haiku only supports up to Polaris based cards like RX480 after that there hasn’t been as much work done yet…also no 3D support on haiku yet.
I do game development on AMD cards only, so yes, AMD works very well with the open software drivers. If you really need “bleeding edge GPU” then you might need the proprietary AMD driver but usually the open source driver is close behind.
I would though not recommend Intel at all. The OpenGL part is ridiculously bad. Now I’m speaking though as a game developer. For everyday use it might just work well enough.
Note Intel is migrating to Gallium, after developing only a classic mesa driver for many years so should have a better driver soon google the Iris gallium driver for info on what they are doing there.
I don’t think it does, at least not in the “dynamic” way I assume joe232 means. The “Automatic swap management” in the VirtualMemory preferences will decide on a swap size depending on RAM (not sure about disk size). The resulting swap file, however, is static and isn’t resized to current demands.