Kubuntu, to be specific – Nepomuk and Strigi caused me a lot of headache. I have been using Kubuntu 8.10 since about 8/11. Generally I find it is safer to wait a month before jumping into updates, even with Linux.

I have loved the new KDE 4 interface after some adjusting, figuring out where things moved, and of course the obligatory customizing to my tastes. Unfortunately, things seemed to be moving very slowly compared to when I was using KDE 3.5. I attributed this to too many desktop effects since I only have an old Inspiron 8600 with an aged nVidia card.

With the effects cranked down the system was completely usable and great for my common net-centric activities like surfing, IM, etc. One night I was in class and goofing off. I had to crank up the effects and show them to my Mac and Win friends.

So, there I am tinkering and checking boxes to turn on flashy stuff, and my system slows to beyond unusable. At this point I am completely honked-off that I won’t be able to show-up my classmates because of some mystery problem that popped up between 3.5 and 4.

After a few minutes of cursing KDE in my mind, I decided to check what was sucking up so much CPU that it could drag my system to its knees. I opened Konsole and typed ‘top’. I could not believe my eyes. Right there at the top of my processes were Strigi and Nepomuk.

As soon as I went into System Settings and turned both of them off, my CPU usage dropped down to the normal 3-20% range. I haven’t bothered to do any research as to why, but with these enabled my system seems to peak out the processor.

With that rant out of the way, I highly suggest you take Kubuntu out for a spin if you haven’t. With this exception it has been an extremely sturdy and flashy system with only 1.5GB of RAM, a 16MB video card, and a 1.6Ghz mobile processor. I know the RAM is a bit high, but it ran fine with only 512MB – I just wanted to have breathing room. 🙂