Page 1 of 1

RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 17:25
by Hallvor
Hello!

There are often tests online about RAM usage, but test with applications actually running on it are more rare. I am not necessarily looking for a scientific comparison with identical applications. Instead, I would like to see where you can do your everyday tasks with the least use of resources and the applications of your own choice. How much RAM is used when everything is running? (No one really works on an empty desktop.)

The applications I have chosen for this test, if anyone wants to compare numbers, are the following:
Terminal
Web browser
File manager
Video player
Word processor

In order to get a fair comparison, we need the following rules:
1. State your version of Debian, the desktop environment/window manager and the name of your applications!
2. State if 32 or 64 bit.
3. State your results after boot (free -m from the terminal) and free -m again with all applications running.



---------------------------------


I volunteer to start :)

1. Debian 8.3, Trinity Desktop Environment R14.0.3, running the following applications:
Terminal=Konsole
Web browser=Konqueror
File manager=Konqueror (both file manager and web browser open during test, of course)
Video player=KMPlayer
Word processor=KWord (blank page)

2. 32 bit

3. My results after fresh boot: 97MB
My results with everything running: 133MB

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 18:55
by edbarx
Memory use on Devuan Jessie 64 bit with iceweasel 44.0.2 running with four pages open. xfce4-terminal, vlc and thunar 1.6.3 running. No wordprocessing programs running.

Code: Select all

 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used	Program

116.0 KiB +  14.0 KiB = 130.0 KiB	uuidd
164.0 KiB +  34.5 KiB = 198.5 KiB	gnome-pty-helper
196.0 KiB +  29.5 KiB = 225.5 KiB	atd
232.0 KiB +  38.5 KiB = 270.5 KiB	init
236.0 KiB +  79.0 KiB = 315.0 KiB	rpc.idmapd
192.0 KiB + 142.5 KiB = 334.5 KiB	avahi-autoipd (2)
304.0 KiB +  41.0 KiB = 345.0 KiB	dbus-launch
324.0 KiB +  75.5 KiB = 399.5 KiB	cron
368.0 KiB +  40.0 KiB = 408.0 KiB	acpid
396.0 KiB +  15.0 KiB = 411.0 KiB	ssh-agent
372.0 KiB +  42.5 KiB = 414.5 KiB	gpg-agent
464.0 KiB + 129.5 KiB = 593.5 KiB	rpcbind
528.0 KiB + 124.0 KiB = 652.0 KiB	xfconfd
528.0 KiB + 221.5 KiB = 749.5 KiB	su
660.0 KiB + 136.5 KiB = 796.5 KiB	rpc.statd
668.0 KiB + 205.5 KiB = 873.5 KiB	at-spi-bus-launcher
  1.0 MiB +  60.5 KiB =   1.0 MiB	udevd
888.0 KiB + 255.0 KiB =   1.1 MiB	getty (6)
912.0 KiB + 266.0 KiB =   1.2 MiB	polkitd
  1.1 MiB + 161.0 KiB =   1.2 MiB	xscreensaver
  1.2 MiB +  62.5 KiB =   1.3 MiB	rsyslogd
984.0 KiB + 394.0 KiB =   1.3 MiB	dbus-daemon (2)
  1.5 MiB +  41.0 KiB =   1.5 MiB	wpa_supplicant
  1.4 MiB + 313.5 KiB =   1.7 MiB	console-kit-daemon
  1.4 MiB + 593.0 KiB =   1.9 MiB	upowerd
  1.6 MiB + 503.5 KiB =   2.1 MiB	x-session-manag
  1.7 MiB + 610.0 KiB =   2.3 MiB	panel-3-systray
  2.3 MiB + 186.5 KiB =   2.5 MiB	privoxy
  2.1 MiB + 544.0 KiB =   2.6 MiB	xfsettingsd
  2.4 MiB + 573.5 KiB =   2.9 MiB	xfce4-power-manager
  2.0 MiB + 917.0 KiB =   2.9 MiB	xfce4-notifyd
  2.5 MiB + 852.0 KiB =   3.3 MiB	bash (2)
  3.9 MiB + 447.0 KiB =   4.3 MiB	tumblerd
  4.0 MiB +   1.2 MiB =   5.2 MiB	xfwm4
  3.8 MiB +   1.5 MiB =   5.3 MiB	xfdesktop
  4.3 MiB +   1.6 MiB =   5.9 MiB	xfce4-terminal
  6.1 MiB + 921.5 KiB =   7.0 MiB	xfce4-volumed
  6.5 MiB +   1.0 MiB =   7.5 MiB	simple-netaid
  5.8 MiB +   2.0 MiB =   7.8 MiB	Thunar
  6.9 MiB +   1.5 MiB =   8.3 MiB	xfce4-panel
 12.7 MiB + 539.0 KiB =  13.3 MiB	slim
 13.6 MiB + 175.0 KiB =  13.8 MiB	dhclient (2)
 19.6 MiB +   5.6 MiB =  25.1 MiB	Xorg
 43.2 MiB +   5.8 MiB =  49.0 MiB	vlc
234.5 MiB +   2.9 MiB = 237.5 MiB	iceweasel
---------------------------------
                        427.8 MiB
=================================
With Lazarus Free Object Pascal IDE running after compiling a moderately complex GUI application.

Code: Select all

 40.3 MiB + 196.5 KiB =  40.4 MiB	gdb
 52.4 MiB +   1.6 MiB =  54.0 MiB	lazarus
 10.3 MiB +   1.0 MiB =  11.3 MiB	ecalc

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 19:42
by lukas
root@refracta:/home/user# ps_mem.py | grep iceweasel
451.1 MiB + 7.8 MiB = 458.8 MiB iceweasel

compared to the 130 MB when using konqueror ... guess i got to have another look at konqueror
To put it different: The webbrowser is the main problem for me. Else i could easily live with 512 MB.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 19:50
by Hallvor
lukas wrote:root@refracta:/home/user# ps_mem.py | grep iceweasel
451.1 MiB + 7.8 MiB = 458.8 MiB iceweasel

compared to the 130 MB when using konqueror ... guess i got to have another look at konqueror
To put it different: The webbrowser is the main problem for me. Else i could easily live with 512 MB.
Konqueror is not that good for web browsing. Many sites are broken, so you're pretty much stuck with Iceweasel or Chrome for those sites.

Anyway, TDE (KDE3) is pretty efficient when you stick with TDE applications.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 20:00
by lukas
I am fine with a wm or xfce. When it comes to RAM-usage it doesn't matter, like said.
How did you install TDE? The only option i know would be exegnulinux http://exegnulinux.net/

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 20:05
by Hallvor
Lukas: Look in the howto section.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 20:11
by lukas
found it (i am the man, huh?)
http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?p=573234

back to topic, konqueror has nice RAM usage:
root@refracta:/home/user# ps_mem.py | grep konqueror
48.4 MiB + 8.8 MiB = 57.2 MiB konqueror
but is kinda broken on facebook. grml ...
Oh my.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 20:17
by edbarx
I tried the KDE 3 fork, also known as Trinity Desktop, but it consumed 466 Mega Bytes only to be loaded :shock: :? . With applications running 1 Giga Bytes were exceeded, and to add insult to injury, there were applications that I couldn't remove. Attempting to remove the latter resulted into a monstrous package uninstallation that I only simulated until I decided to deliver the blow of grace to completely remove and purge Trinity Desktop. For the future, I think, Fluxbox can be useful.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 21:45
by keithpeter
Hello All

Fun thread. I suspect that the way the kernel allocates RAM will depend on the amount of RAM in the machine, so can we all please state that or simply copy the output of free -m?

Below a series of measurements on my minimal Jessie 32 bit install on a Thinkpad X200 with 2Gb of RAM and a 64Gb SSD. Goes like brown stuff off a shovel. Loving the dwm/dmenu/surf desktop. Using ifconfig/wpasupplicant for wifi and pmount for external storage.

Below for fresh boot into X with a dwm and a single xterm

Code: Select all

 
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1966        162       1804         16         13         88
-/+ buffers/cache:         59       1906
Swap:         2518          0       2518
Below with one xterm running, the Surf Web browser with one window on this forum (Javascript not disabled), LibreOffice with a fresh Writer document and one sentence, PCManFM file manager showing the multifarious content of my home drive and VLC playing Music for 18 Musicians by Steve Reich as performed by Eighth Blackbird (YouTube via youtube-dl)

Code: Select all

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1966        506       1460         47         20        325
-/+ buffers/cache:        159       1806
Swap:         2518          0       2518
Below an analysis of the full session using ./ps_mem.py as others have posted here

Code: Select all

 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used	Program

 84.0 KiB +  67.5 KiB = 151.5 KiB	sleep
 76.0 KiB +  87.5 KiB = 163.5 KiB	sh
 76.0 KiB +  94.5 KiB = 170.5 KiB	startx
152.0 KiB +  77.5 KiB = 229.5 KiB	atd
168.0 KiB + 124.5 KiB = 292.5 KiB	xinit
176.0 KiB + 175.5 KiB = 351.5 KiB	avahi-autoipd (2)
276.0 KiB + 143.5 KiB = 419.5 KiB	cron
484.0 KiB +  55.5 KiB = 539.5 KiB	rpc.idmapd
356.0 KiB + 228.5 KiB = 584.5 KiB	rpcbind
376.0 KiB + 235.5 KiB = 611.5 KiB	su
560.0 KiB + 224.0 KiB = 784.0 KiB	login
596.0 KiB + 232.5 KiB = 828.5 KiB	rpc.statd
528.0 KiB + 309.5 KiB = 837.5 KiB	dwm
584.0 KiB + 396.5 KiB = 980.5 KiB	agetty (5)
  1.1 MiB + 135.5 KiB =   1.2 MiB	exim4
  1.1 MiB + 157.5 KiB =   1.2 MiB	systemd-udevd
  1.2 MiB + 136.0 KiB =   1.3 MiB	systemd-journald
  1.0 MiB + 544.5 KiB =   1.5 MiB	oosplash
  1.5 MiB + 121.0 KiB =   1.6 MiB	rsyslogd
  1.8 MiB + 376.5 KiB =   2.2 MiB	wpa_supplicant
  2.1 MiB + 161.0 KiB =   2.2 MiB	systemd
  1.7 MiB + 553.5 KiB =   2.2 MiB	sshd
  3.8 MiB +   1.6 MiB =   5.4 MiB	bash (7)
  5.6 MiB + 696.0 KiB =   6.3 MiB	xterm
  4.9 MiB +   4.5 MiB =   9.5 MiB	pcmanfm
  9.3 MiB + 697.0 KiB =   9.9 MiB	dhclient (2)
 20.6 MiB +   3.9 MiB =  24.5 MiB	Xorg
 35.2 MiB +   6.1 MiB =  41.3 MiB	surf
 78.0 MiB +   4.2 MiB =  82.1 MiB	soffice.bin
 76.8 MiB +   5.7 MiB =  82.5 MiB	vlc
---------------------------------
                        281.8 MiB
=================================
Finally, I can't help post the output of pstree below...

Code: Select all

keith@foo:~$ pstree -A
systemd-+-5*[agetty]
        |-atd
        |-avahi-autoipd---avahi-autoipd
        |-bash---surf-+-{dconf worker}
        |             `-4*[{surf}]
        |-bash---oosplash-+-soffice.bin-+-{OfficeIPCThread}
        |                 |             |-{SelectionManage}
        |                 |             `-{rtl_cache_wsupd}
        |                 |-{oosplash}
        |                 `-{rtl_cache_wsupd}
        |-bash---pcmanfm---{gmain}
        |-bash---vlc---11*[{vlc}]
        |-bash---leafpad
        |-cron
        |-2*[dhclient]
        |-exim4
        |-login---bash---startx---xinit-+-Xorg
        |                               `-dwm-+-sh---sleep
        |                                     `-xterm---bash---pstree
        |-rpc.idmapd
        |-rpc.statd
        |-rpcbind
        |-rsyslogd-+-{in:imklog}
        |          |-{in:imuxsock}
        |          `-{rs:main Q:Reg}
        |-sshd
        |-systemd-journal
        |-systemd-udevd
        `-wpa_supplicant
As I mentioned on the alternative Web browser thread, I find the suckless software Web browser Surf to be stable if possibly insecure. The dwb browser I found to be very crashy which is a shame as I like the UI. VLC is running at cpu=25% on this core-duo laptop, running the mp4 video full screen at 1280x700.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 22:42
by lukas
keithpeter wrote:Hello All

Fun thread. I suspect that the way the kernel allocates RAM will depend on the amount of RAM in the machine, so can we all please state that or simply copy the output of free -m?
Good point.
The laptop has got 1 Gig of RAM, the desktop 4 Gigs. On both iceweasel ist the main problem and using ~ 400 MB after a short while. The rest of the software mentioned in the OP i don't use anyway (well: tilda as a terminal-emulator, it uses 3 MB, nothing which matters).

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-08 23:43
by spacex
Hallvor wrote:
1. Debian 8.3, Trinity Desktop Environment R14.0.3, running the following applications:
Terminal=Konsole
Web browser=Konqueror
File manager=Konqueror (both file manager and web browser open during test, of course)
Video player=KMPlayer
Word processor=KWord (blank page)

2. 32 bit

3. My results after fresh boot: 97MB
My results with everything running: 133MB
Sorry dude, but I don't believe you. If that's the stats you get reported, then something is seriously wrong with whatever you use to report it. File a bug-report :lol:

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-09 03:54
by emariz
Should the open documents not be standardised? I mean, a word processor with a blank document and a video player which is not playing a video are pointless improbable examples. What about a word processor displaying a small (250+ words) essay with active orthographic correction and a web browser with at least to active tabs displaying a newspaper and e-mail?

Moreover, in my case a video player would not even be open if I were working on a word processor. Yet, and for the purposes of this thread, the memory consumption would depend on the quality and length of the displayed video.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-09 05:50
by Hallvor
spacex wrote:
Hallvor wrote:
1. Debian 8.3, Trinity Desktop Environment R14.0.3, running the following applications:
Terminal=Konsole
Web browser=Konqueror
File manager=Konqueror (both file manager and web browser open during test, of course)
Video player=KMPlayer
Word processor=KWord (blank page)

2. 32 bit

3. My results after fresh boot: 97MB
My results with everything running: 133MB
Sorry dude, but I don't believe you. If that's the stats you get reported, then something is seriously wrong with whatever you use to report it. File a bug-report :lol:
For the sake of (pseudo?) science I'll test again later (and post the output of free -m). :D

Re: RAM comparison thread (Pure TDE awesomeness) :)

Posted: 2016-03-10 14:39
by Hallvor
Here are some pics with free -m output and applications running in the background:

Clean boot (just Konsole):

Image

With Konsole and Konqueror web browser:

Image

With Konsole, Konqueror web browser and Konqueror file manager:

Image

With Konsole, Konqueror web browser, Konqueror file manager and KMplayer (video player):
Image

With Konsole, Konqueror web browser, Konqueror file manager, KMplayer and Kword (word processor):

Image

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-11 01:55
by dzz
Running TDE here on a number of Debian systems since it was first forked. I never experienced what edbarx wrote about TDE in dozens+ of TDE installs (but not nearly as good as Hallvor posted). It's normally similar resource usage to xfce4, which I also use. A TDE installation can be anything from tde-base-trinity (basic DE) to tde-trinity (monster meta). That might make a difference, I don't install the meta. Whether you use a display manager (on this box, TDM) or startx likely counts.

One machine here, a dell tower with only 512 ram running wheezy+TDE can do web, libreoffice and video.

At the moment all I got available is a 64-bit Devuan/Jessie +TDE system available, on an old Lenovo with intel core2 and 1G ram. I'm also running consolekit(2) and wicd, both known resource hogs. A terminal and text editor are already open.

Sorry, this is a quite unscientific test, on what's not even pure Debian.. point is, all of these things can be done with only 1G ram (or less) while running a fully-featured DE.

Startup:

Code: Select all

:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           991        361        629         33         30        167
-/+ buffers/cache:        164        827
Swap:         2008          0       2008
+ Open iceweasel at http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=127436:

Code: Select all

:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           991        553        437         45         34        256
-/+ buffers/cache:        262        728
Swap:         2008          0       2008
+ Open libreoffice writer:

Code: Select all

:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           991        710        280         50         35        381
-/+ buffers/cache:        293        697
Swap:         2008          0       2008

+ Open konqueror file manager:

Code: Select all

:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           991        745        245         51         36        390
-/+ buffers/cache:        318        672
Swap:         2008          0       2008
+ Play an mp4 video in kaffeine (no stuttering/jumping):

Code: Select all

:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           991        832        158         63         36        431
-/+ buffers/cache:        364        626
Swap:         2008          0       2008
The only trouble I get on this machine is multiple tabs in the weasel with flash content or mksquashfs (but that's cpu not ram)

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-11 07:33
by edbarx
dzz wrote:Running TDE here on a number of Debian systems since it was first forked. I never experienced what edbarx wrote about TDE in dozens+ of TDE installs (but not nearly as good as Hallvor posted). It's normally similar resource usage to xfce4, which I also use. A TDE installation can be anything from tde-base-trinity (basic DE) to tde-trinity (monster meta). That might make a difference, I don't install the meta. Whether you use a display manager (on this box, TDM) or startx likely counts.
To be fair, I installed Trinity Desktop using tde-trinity which pulled many packages that I didn't want to install. The selection of automatically chosen software was clearly aimed at common computer users who only use a computer to chat, surf the net, write emails, watch videos, listen to music and share files.

If I remember well there was also file indexing going on, sudo was installed and su failed to recognise my root password.

ADDED LATER:
The following memory usage is after I stopped slim and XFCE using the command:

Code: Select all

# /etc/init.d/slim stop
It seems the kernel alone is using ~420 Mega Bytes! My installed kernel version is 3.2.0-4-rt-amd64. Running startx after stopping slim and saving the results shown below to a text file resulted into XFCE being loaded almost instantly. This shows that the kernel is doing some type of memory caching so that already used programs would use the same memory image avoiding reading and loading their executable code into memory. Unless there is a way of looking into what memory is chached by the kernel, memory use reporting alone is next to useless. Kernel memory caching is a brilliant idea to improve overall system response and to reduce having to read data from disks.

Code: Select all

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1941        466       1474          6         41        327
-/+ buffers/cache:         97       1843
Swap:            0          0          0

 Private  +   Shared  =  RAM used	Program

116.0 KiB +  18.0 KiB = 134.0 KiB	uuidd
196.0 KiB +  34.5 KiB = 230.5 KiB	atd
232.0 KiB +  61.5 KiB = 293.5 KiB	init
188.0 KiB + 164.5 KiB = 352.5 KiB	avahi-autoipd (2)
328.0 KiB +  38.0 KiB = 366.0 KiB	rpc.idmapd
384.0 KiB +  38.5 KiB = 422.5 KiB	gpg-agent
324.0 KiB + 104.5 KiB = 428.5 KiB	cron
380.0 KiB +  57.0 KiB = 437.0 KiB	acpid
456.0 KiB + 153.5 KiB = 609.5 KiB	rpcbind
664.0 KiB + 162.5 KiB = 826.5 KiB	rpc.statd
512.0 KiB + 325.5 KiB = 837.5 KiB	su
812.0 KiB +  71.0 KiB = 883.0 KiB	dbus-daemon
680.0 KiB + 324.5 KiB =   1.0 MiB	login
740.0 KiB + 332.5 KiB =   1.0 MiB	getty (5)
  1.1 MiB +  86.5 KiB =   1.2 MiB	udevd
  1.3 MiB +  76.5 KiB =   1.3 MiB	rsyslogd
  1.5 MiB +  50.0 KiB =   1.5 MiB	wpa_supplicant
  1.3 MiB + 647.0 KiB =   1.9 MiB	polkitd
  1.6 MiB + 831.0 KiB =   2.4 MiB	console-kit-daemon
  2.2 MiB + 123.5 KiB =   2.4 MiB	privoxy
  2.2 MiB + 762.0 KiB =   3.0 MiB	upowerd
  3.0 MiB + 969.0 KiB =   3.9 MiB	bash (2)
 13.6 MiB + 183.0 KiB =  13.8 MiB	dhclient (2)
---------------------------------
                         39.1 MiB
=================================

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-03-14 15:01
by alderaan
I 'll try to make mine a little more scientific (lol).

Machine 1:
CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo E6550 @2.33 GHz [64-bit]
Video: Intel GMA 3100
RAM: 4 GB
OS: Debian 8 Jessie (Stable) [64-bit]
DE: XFCE
Applications:
Terminal: xfce-4 terminal running only top and one tab for the memory check
Web browser: Iceweasel (2 windows, 12 tabs total)
File manager: Thunar (2 tabs)
Text Editor: Mousepad


(A) Recovery mode (just after booting)
(B) CLI booting with the parameter: "systemd.unit=multi-user.target" on the kernel line
(C) GUI but zero programms running (just after booting)
(D) Busy: GUI but no uptime
(E) Busy and after 21 days uptime

Code: Select all

Session      free -m        ps_mem.py
  (A)          140           28.7 MiB
  (B)          187           58.0 MiB
  (C)          428          195.1 MiB
  (D)         1163          700.6 MiB
  (E)         3447            1.1 GiB
Pretty impressive, isn't it?
Some notes:
* Between sesions (E) and (D) the Iceweasel is dropping from 869 to 700 MiB (according to ps_mem.py) with exactly the same tabs opened!
* After the womping 869 MiB of Icewesel in session (E) the next biggest number is 24.3 MiB for xfce4-appfinder.

======================================================================================================================

Machine 2:

CPU: Intel Pentium 4 3.20 Ghz [64-bit]
Video: Integrated Graphics
RAM: 1.5 GiB
OS: Debian 8 Jessie (Stable) [64-bit]
DE: LXDE

Applications:

Terminal: LX Terminal running only top and one tab for the memory check
Web browser: Iceweasel (3 windows, 23 tabs total)
E-mail client: Icedove (many big mail accounts + Usenet + RSS)
File manager: PCManFM (2 windows, 5 tabs total)
Video player: VLC playing a 2.4 GiB movie (xvid.avi file)
Libre Office: 3 spreadsheat files (totaling size: 1.1 MiB)
Torrent Client: Transmission (Downloading 1 file and seeding 8)
Text Editor: Leafpad


(A) Recovery mode (just after booting)
(B) CLI booting with the parameter: "systemd.unit=multi-user.target" on the kernel line
(C) GUI but zero programms running (just after booting)
(D) Busy: GUI but no uptime
(E) Busy and after 6 days uptime

Code: Select all

Session       free -m       ps_mem.py
  (A)          99           20.7 MiB
  (B)         135           42.4 MiB
  (C)         368          158.1 MiB
  (D)         1408         961.3 MiB
  (E)         1396         718.7 MiB
How memory usage is bigger in (D) than (E), I can't explain!


The same machine with a quite minimal Sid installation that I use for experimenting and learning (with XFCE and Enlightenment available hence the two numbers in the (C) session):

Code: Select all

Session       free -m       ps_mem.py
  (A)          20             9.2 MiB
  (B)          35            42.0 MiB
  (C)         112/65        167/104 MiB
=> Enlightenment is quite lighter than XFCE

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-12-27 18:13
by None1975
I installed Trinity Desktop R14.0.4, using tde-trinity metapackage. On cold startup, with default configuration, it uses only 200 mb. of RAM (x64 bit. machine). Very lightwieght (i think). :D

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2016-12-27 20:21
by NFT5
AMD FX6300 with 8GB RAM, MATE & Marco.

Code: Select all

chris@BOSSDESK:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7972        816       7155         18         40        316
-/+ buffers/cache:        460       7512
Swap:        15943          0      15943
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7972       1724       6247         26        103        728
-/+ buffers/cache:        893       7079
Swap:        15943          0      15943
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          7972       4973       2998         32        120       1534
-/+ buffers/cache:       3318       4654
Swap:        15943          0      15943
chris@BOSSDESK:~$ 
First is on clean boot.

Second is with:
Firefox 45.5 with 2 tabs open
OpenOffice Writer with a 2 page document open
VLC playing an MP3
MATE Terminal
Dolphin file manager

Third is more like I usually run:
Firefox with 2 tabs open
MATE Terminal
Dolphin file manager
WinXP running in Virtualbox with a database open and 2GB RAM allocated to that VM
Thunderbird open

Chews up the RAM pretty quick and I've been using Win7 Pro in another VM which has 4GB allocated so really starting to think about upping RAM to 16GB. Swap is on an SSD so doesn't penalise me too much at present when it is used.

Re: RAM comparison thread

Posted: 2017-01-02 18:39
by Head_on_a_Stick
wizard10000 wrote:slim
That project is dead upstream and the display manager doesn't handle systemd user sessions correctly, this can cause problems (if you use systemd).

I would recommend LightDM instead.

Or https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php ... 6#p1680406 :D