This is exactly why I don't run gnome: I don't like running a bunch of code that only serves to slow me down. I ran gnome on freebsd for a while and it was noticeably faster. This is due in part to the fact that I wasn't running all the crap ubuntu installs these days (why am I running a couchdb server on my laptop?), but also due to the fact that freebsd I think does a lot of things better, including fairer scheduling, and it has a sane init system.