Scheduled Maintenance: We are aware of an issue with Google, AOL, and Yahoo services as email providers which are blocking new registrations. We are trying to fix the issue and we have several internal and external support tickets in process to resolve the issue. Please see: viewtopic.php?t=158230

 

 

 

Improve memory usage in Debian

New to Debian (Or Linux in general)? Ask your questions here!
Message
Author
Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#76 Post by Deb-fan »

Lol o course thread has jumped the tracks(myself contributing to.) :p

@Sickpig see such, just remembered from #! (Crunchbang gnu/linux) days. Think you'd have liked it. By advanced applications think that Halloran meant KDE is more feature rich than Xfce. Though also maintaining much can be done to tweak all hades out of Kde/Gnome/Xfce. Less than 100mbs difference between KDE VS Xfce4, guessing that instance of Xfce must've been Uber bloated. Meta-package (recommend/suggests/kitchen-sink setup?) OK shutting it.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
sickpig
Posts: 589
Joined: 2019-01-23 10:34

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#77 Post by sickpig »

Deb-fan thanks for the link, I dont need compositing for anything as such yet. But good to know in case i come across something which absolutely will not work without it.

User avatar
Hallvor
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 2029
Joined: 2009-04-16 18:35
Location: Kristiansand, Norway
Has thanked: 139 times
Been thanked: 206 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#78 Post by Hallvor »

Deb-fan wrote:Less than 100mbs difference between KDE VS Xfce4, guessing that instance of Xfce must've been Uber bloated. Meta-package (recommend/suggests/kitchen-sink setup?) OK shutting it.
This was the stock Debian 9 install, so it can be argued that they are both bloated. I was unable to find out if compositing was disabled in KDE in the benchmark, as it is enabled by default. Anyway, compositing off on both desktop environments would probably be a good idea for a fair comparison.

As for advanced applications, it had of course nothing to do with compositing, but features. (English is not my native language, so what can you expect.. ;)) The benchmark showed RAM usage with Firefox, the terminal and the file manager. My point was that Konsole is more feature rich than the terminal of XFCE, and Dolphin is more feature rich than Thunar, making the differenve of RAM comsumption somewhat less impressive.

I was an XFCE user for a year or two myself, but I did have a soft spot for KDE applications, and KDE (3.5) was rumored to be bloated even back then. But I found that XFCE actually used more RAM than KDE when using KDE applications.

Fresh benchmarks for stock Buster installs would be nice, if anyone is up for the task.
[HowTo] Install and configure Debian bookworm
Debian 12 | KDE Plasma | ThinkPad T440s | 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4600U CPU @ 2.10GHz | 12 GiB RAM | Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4400 | 1 TB SSD

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#79 Post by Deb-fan »

^ DEFINITELY Hallvor( about to start a dorkish thread on the topic, why not ... it's what forums are for right ?)

@Sickpig welcome dude. :)

More babblings folks, forgive me in advance. Think it's one of the many great things about gnu/Linux. All supposed to be interoperable/modular. Yeah you can use Kde apps in Gnome and vice versa. Just like someone can use those in openbox-etc. Though you're going to pull in a crapton of bloat packages along with, esp if someone were to have apt/itude-whatever set to also install recommends/suggests. It's one of my pet peeves too. I consider any system resources whether it be mem/disk/cpu that's not being used for a purpose I find useful or enjoyable to be wasted. Also am compelled to tweak all hades out of any OS used or applications on it where possible. ie: Firefox stock, is still a system resource sucking pigdog vs some tweaks applied. There's a night and day difference.

While bytching, also always been aggravated by distro's that put out versions with different GUI (like Xfce) but the underlying operating system is still the same. That's not aimed at Debian, I <heart> Debian. I still really like Linux Mint from afar but they're gnome centric (used a ton of gnome packages), always have been. So a ton of stuff has to be trimmed out of the xfce edition to get it under control. End result is someone may have Xfce and it'll be somewhat lighter on resources but not much difference in what's under the hood.

Note: Recently played with several of LM's releases, Cinnamon/Mate/LMDE3 and all of them were very reasonable and good OS's imo out-of-box but esp so after applying some tweakage. Just don't want to defame LM.

Basically always have, always will like getting the most out my equipment. If I can find a feature rich app/util that does a great job for it's function but only has a handful of depends-etc. I can't see any reason to use something that's bloated and pulls in a kitchen sink to the OS. Like you/Hallvor said with avg system specs these days, systems have plenty to spare anyway. It's down to personal preferences I guess. For me ... minimal Debian netinstall(s) are my preference and can't see that changing. Only time I've installed a full stock Debian OS was by accident, I'd hit the wrong thing in the installer. Looked at it for all of 12secs thought, nice. Overwrote the install and got what I was going for setup. :D Sorry folks, haven't done the gnu/Linux forum thing in quite awhile. So am typing-babbling my arse off.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
PsySc0rpi0n
Posts: 322
Joined: 2012-10-24 13:54
Location: Bitcoin World
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#80 Post by PsySc0rpi0n »

Hello peeps.

I stopped getting notifications on this thread and had no idea the thread blew off to the sky in replies... :)

Anyway, about my original reason for creating this thread, I think the culprit was obvious. Google Chrome is the one.
The steps I took to make this less "painful" to RAM was only 3 steps.

1 - Decreasing number of tabs open (probably the main contributor).
2 - Uninstall some Google apps (so called add ons??) I think I could live without.
3 - Install add on "noscript" and allow only the critical java stuff needed to load and use sites. Apparently Java/JS/etc is also an heavy RAM consumer.

My first (or early posts) claimed that I was having issues with RAM where out of 16Gb RAM, about 12Gb or more were being used. I was using a few applications at the same time but probably I didn't need to have them all opened at the same time.

As of now, 8 tabs open, Telegram and Discord, irssi (inside screen), rtorrent (inside screen) and only 3.35Gb of RAM used.

I tried to change swappiness setting and one other that was inside the same file but now I want to change it back but I'm not sure the previous values.
I remember I added vm.swappiness=50 to /etc/sysctl.conf file but there is another setting there that I'm not sure if I added it myself or if it was already there which is vm.vfs_cache_pressure=200.

I read that default values are 60 and 100 respectively. Is this accurate? Or can I just delete that 2nd setting and leave just the other as vm.swappiness=10???

However, if I run:

Code: Select all

sudo swapon --show
I get the following output:

Code: Select all

NAME      TYPE      SIZE USED PRIO
/dev/sda5 partition 4,9G   0B   -2
I was expecting some used value because vm.swappiness=50, so wasn't it expected to have some SWAP space used?

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#81 Post by Deb-fan »

Yeah just delete that cache pressure deal (remove it from the sysctl.config file and reboot)
and have always seen setting swappiness to 10 as the recommendation for swappiness for personal computing gnu/nix users. Lol.. thought you'd threw up your hands on this thread long ago. :) Also long since have considered noscript an essential tweak. Looks like you've come a long way in getting memory use under control.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
PsySc0rpi0n
Posts: 322
Joined: 2012-10-24 13:54
Location: Bitcoin World
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#82 Post by PsySc0rpi0n »

Deb-fan wrote:Yeah just delete that cache pressure deal (remove it from the sysctl.config file and reboot)
and have always seen setting swappiness to 10 as the recommendation for swappiness for personal computing gnu/nix users. Lol.. thought you'd threw up your hands on this thread long ago. :) Also long since have considered noscript an essential tweak. Looks like you've come a long way in getting memory use under control.
yeah, indeed.

But about vm.swappiness setting, even though the command
sudo swapon --show
shows 50 as output, this setting in sysctl.conf will override it?

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#83 Post by Deb-fan »

Yeah should, next time the system is rebooted. Can do so on a running system too I just don't remember the command to do so off the top. Seems you've zero'ed in on your culprit. A browser using 5gbs?! Seems browser makers have adopted an oh you have some free memory, I'll take that attitude. Yikes.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
Head_on_a_Stick
Posts: 14114
Joined: 2014-06-01 17:46
Location: London, England
Has thanked: 81 times
Been thanked: 132 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#84 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

Deb-fan wrote:Can do so on a running system too I just don't remember the command to do so off the top.

Code: Select all

E485:~# sysctl vm.swappiness
vm.swappiness = 60
E485:~# sysctl vm.swappiness=10
vm.swappiness = 10
E485:~# sysctl vm.swappiness    
vm.swappiness = 10
E485:~#
Or

Code: Select all

E485:~# cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
10
E485:~# echo 60 > /proc/sys/vm/swappiness
E485:~# cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness       
60
E485:~# sysctl vm.swappiness
vm.swappiness = 60
E485:~#
deadbang

User avatar
PsySc0rpi0n
Posts: 322
Joined: 2012-10-24 13:54
Location: Bitcoin World
Has thanked: 8 times
Been thanked: 1 time

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#85 Post by PsySc0rpi0n »

Thanks.
Done...

I can't reboot right now because I have rtorrent running downloading an huge torrent (316Gb) and if I close rtorrent, then next time I start it, it will start hashing that data and as this data is on a shared drive which is not physically connected to my laptop (it's shared via wireless), it will take ages to hash_check. Son, when the torrent is finished, I'll restart!

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#86 Post by Deb-fan »

^ Good deal and thanks HOAS was being too lazy to Google. :)
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
sickpig
Posts: 589
Joined: 2019-01-23 10:34

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#87 Post by sickpig »

@Hallvor and kde fans, i just figured out y kde sucks.
tried it and i c kwin continuously uses 12% cpu, wtf?
openbox zero cpu usage

User avatar
Hallvor
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 2029
Joined: 2009-04-16 18:35
Location: Kristiansand, Norway
Has thanked: 139 times
Been thanked: 206 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#88 Post by Hallvor »

sickpig wrote:@Hallvor and kde fans, i just figured out y kde sucks.
tried it and i c kwin continuously uses 12% cpu, wtf?
openbox zero cpu usage
Yes, KDE sucks. I have just found it to suck a little less than the others.

Kwin is a compositing window manager, Openbox is a stacking window manager. You are comparing pears with oranges.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositi ... w_managers

Try running Compiz for a comparison that makes sense.
Last edited by Hallvor on 2019-07-14 12:20, edited 2 times in total.
[HowTo] Install and configure Debian bookworm
Debian 12 | KDE Plasma | ThinkPad T440s | 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4600U CPU @ 2.10GHz | 12 GiB RAM | Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4400 | 1 TB SSD

User avatar
sickpig
Posts: 589
Joined: 2019-01-23 10:34

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#89 Post by sickpig »

My interest was piqued after your posts in favour of kde. So decided to try it. M sure it would be great with with a WM which is not such a cpu hog.

User avatar
Hallvor
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 2029
Joined: 2009-04-16 18:35
Location: Kristiansand, Norway
Has thanked: 139 times
Been thanked: 206 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#90 Post by Hallvor »

To each his own. I prefer a window manager that doesn't risk making the entire screen freeze if an application is unresponsive.
Last edited by Hallvor on 2019-07-14 12:14, edited 1 time in total.
[HowTo] Install and configure Debian bookworm
Debian 12 | KDE Plasma | ThinkPad T440s | 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4600U CPU @ 2.10GHz | 12 GiB RAM | Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4400 | 1 TB SSD

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#91 Post by Deb-fan »

My dang gnu-nix forum bug has reared its ugly head again! Had to Google Kwin(KDE windows manager, transitioning into a Wayland compositor.) Gotta agree with Hallvor, like comparing pears to oranges, when you've never eaten an orange and already much prefer pears anyway. Someone would have to actually use xyz DE/WM and get somewhat familiar with them, before they can even form a valid opinion.

Ten mins of playing with one of them realistically doesn't cut it or give the chance to find out what they can do. What can be done to or with them. Doesnt matter I guess we all have plenty of choices.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

User avatar
sickpig
Posts: 589
Joined: 2019-01-23 10:34

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#92 Post by sickpig »

No what? Xorg makes the screen freeze not the wm.

User avatar
Hallvor
Global Moderator
Global Moderator
Posts: 2029
Joined: 2009-04-16 18:35
Location: Kristiansand, Norway
Has thanked: 139 times
Been thanked: 206 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#93 Post by Hallvor »

sickpig wrote:No what? Xorg makes the screen freeze not the wm.

Since you did not read the link:
With a stacking manager, the repainting process can become corrupted when a program that is slow, unresponsive or buggy does not respond to messages in a timely manner.[5][6] A malicious program can cause the system to appear unstable by simply neglecting to repaint its window. Then, one or more of the following conditions may result:

a clipped window does not repaint uncovered regions, resulting in either blank spaces or a "trail" left behind from another window
portions of windows (such as decorative drop shadows) are left behind and not properly painted over
the mouse pointer is corrupted[7][unreliable source]
screen updates become unbearably slow[8]
the entire screen freezes until the program either responds or is terminated[9]

With a compositing manager, if a window stops repainting itself when requested by the window manager, its last repaint will remain displayed and the window might be dimmed. Often the title changes to reflect the status of the window as unresponsive. A program may prevent its window from being moved or unmapped, but generally will not cause repainting problems.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compositi ... w_managers


Anything wrong with that?
[HowTo] Install and configure Debian bookworm
Debian 12 | KDE Plasma | ThinkPad T440s | 4 × Intel® Core™ i7-4600U CPU @ 2.10GHz | 12 GiB RAM | Mesa Intel® HD Graphics 4400 | 1 TB SSD

User avatar
sickpig
Posts: 589
Joined: 2019-01-23 10:34

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#94 Post by sickpig »

No, both kwin and openbox r stacking wms. I think compositing makes kwin such a cpu hog.

Deb-fan
Posts: 1047
Joined: 2012-08-14 12:27
Been thanked: 4 times

Re: Improve memory usage in Debian

#95 Post by Deb-fan »

Don't take Wikipedia as an authority. Have never seen such behavior from openbox or any wm/de I've used. Though would be easy enough to remedy on any of them too. If anything sounds like a gpu-vid driver situation and would have say big DE's would be more prone to such because they're inherently more complex. Though get tons of dev attention too, shrugs. Nobody has to really mess with openbox either though, it's been rock solid so long. No reason for major rewrites.
Most powerful FREE tech-support tool on the planet * HERE. *

Post Reply