What is Digg?62 Comments
- irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+30Using all available memory as a buffer for improving performance == good, having all your memory made unusable because it's being sapped away by the GUI and basic system services == bad.
- biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11Three cheers for someone posting a Linux guide without referring to it as an Ubuntu guide.
"using an Ubuntu system as an example"
And maybe this can serve as an example for future Digg posters. - irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I believe that it's because Kword shares its memory footprint with KDE. Abiword uses less memory if you take into account that kword's footprint includes a portion of KDE. Same with any KDE apps, entirely by design:)
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11@ashukg: So you're basically suggesting I punt my laptop out a 5th story window ?
- irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Nope; Xubuntu uses too much swap on said system; it needs 128 megs of RAM to be usable. On the Ubuntu/Debianish side, Fluxbuntu did a much better job, but still spilled into swap (would probably be usable with 96MB RAM). Damn Small Linux did OK, but still not quite there.
I want this Libretto 110CT to be usable as an IM+word processor+basic web browser machine, because it's the perfect size for traveling with. Sigh... If only it didn't max out at 64MB:P - irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I'd like to see an article dealing with the kind of memory optimizations needed to make computer with a 233Mhz Pentium MMX processor and 64MB RAM usable in the modern world:D
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6It's easy to write crappy apps using either, so "any" app isn't fair - but there's something to what you're saying.
People like to say that KDE is more memory-intensive and "bloated" than Gnome. However, KDE in general is more memory-efficient and uses less memory (because the two aren't the same thing) than Gnome in general - the "gnome is more lightweight" thing has been a myth for years.
Of course, blanket comparisons are pretty misleading, but try just the DE basics and you get a much bigger and more configurable feature set with less memory usage.
If the interested user tests this for their self, and don't tow the line on myths, they can find I'm right very easily using their own computer.
@people tempted to disbelieve me off hand or think I'm being a KDE enthusiast - go on, read the source, do comparative testing for yourself. I have no plan of white-washing or persuading, I only point you to the facts and leave you to make your own mind up. - ostracize, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Kind of interesting but most of this is just common sense. Don't run programs you don't have to and replace the memory intensive ones with lighter applications.
- tenderstorm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Conclusion: *any* KDE application can beat ***** out of *any* Gnome...sry, GTK+ application in memory usage.
- Makurosu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5irieKEN - Try Damn Small Linux (DSL). http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ I have it installed on two computers. One has 64mb and the other 48mb. It works very well on both, and it's a surprisingly nice distribution. I use Firefox on the 64mb box. Don't waste your time with Xubuntu. It needs 128mb to run well and thrashes too much at 64mb. DSL is the one to use.
BTW, I also have a Toshiba Libretto 110CT, but sadly the drive controller on the motherboard is fried. I would love to have put DSL on that. There's no question that it would run well. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Damn Small Linux is the way to go there. I believe it uses Fluxbox as the WM. It's very light-weight RAM-wise and feels snappy to use.
- spudlyo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4
Solaris:
NAME
killall - kill all active processes
Linux:
NAME
killall - kill processes by name
Big freaking difference! Once you've been bitten in the ass by this you never forget! - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5You know I've used both for a while, and to tell you the truth I didn't notice a damn bit of difference in performance on the same machine. They both felt equally snappy.
- DigitalGnome, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Common sense but still a great tutorial on HOW to go about doing that.
- Xilon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3From what I've heard Gentoo's optimisation and constant compiling does nothing for performance but does waste your time. I'm running Arch Linux and it's great, it's optimised for i686 processors, you could even change the CFLAGS etc and recompile the whole system if you wanted to, but I doubt that would give any performance boost. Anyway I tend to use around 200mb RAM (with firefox running!), but I don't have a DE installed.
My point is, it's not about the optimisations etc, it's about what programs you have installed and running. The kernel itself doesn't take much ram. - Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4There's no way in hell Xubuntu would run that well on that system. I had problems running Xubuntu on a PII 450MHz, 128MB RAM.
Not sure if the project is still active, but take a look at muLinux: http://mulinux.dotsrc.org/ - drizek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3He did mention top, and why he wasnt using it. htop is better anyway.
- elley, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Check out DeLi Linux http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/ . It's still beta, but they're designing it for computers even worse than yours, so give it a shot.
- Roryking, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Try using an older kernel (2.4 or even 2.2 series). I think they're still actively "supported" (although you'll probably only find the latest hardware and features supported on the 2.6/2.7 series) and I think they have a significantly smaller memory footprint... I think they use the 2.2 kernel on a lot of embedded devices for that reason.
- biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2> Do you think it really helps a lot to compile your own kernel to match your hardware?
In my experience, no. Maybe there are times when it does help, but it has not helped me. (Assuming you are referring to speed.) I currently use Debian Etch. I've seen a lot of arguments for doing so. In practice, I've never seen an improvement. Others may have different experiences. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2They left out:
/proc/sys/vm/swappiness
which can be your friend. - spudlyo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Linux scales down quite well. I'd be willing to bet with some tweaking you could get a 2.6 kernel to run on a 386 with 4MB of memory. Getting an OS to install on it is a different story...
- irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I definitely recommend trying Fluxbuntu (www.fluxbuntu.org). Also, using the kernel compiled for i686 may boost performance a bit.
As far as video for DSL goes, you have to manually configure resolution. Once you do that, all is well (had to do it with my widescreen Libretto). Integrated wifi can be a challenge though. - irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I believe that the P2120 can hold 256MB RAM, so that machine should be very usable with just about any Linux distro (or Windows 2K [XP would be pushing it a bit on 256 megs of RAM]). Try Fluxbuntu or KateOS:) Even Ubuntu 6.10 should be fairly responsive on that machine.
- biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I doubt xubuntu would be a good choice for that type of machine. Despite the claims to run on "old hardware" they define old hardware as 1 ghz and 256 mb of ram.
You would have to most likely give up on gnome and kde, and go with xfce or something else with lower requirements. You could use Debian Etch on that type of machine. The tradeoff is that you'd have to do a little work yourself, but that is to be expected. The good thing is that you can still access the Debian repositories. I know, I've gotten a 233 mhz computer working with Etch, and it runs everything except openoffice without problems.
Alternatives include Vector Linux and possibly Dreamlinux. That machine is definitely sufficient for most tasks. Just don't do a lot of number crunching or expect to use Beryl and you will be fine. You will have access to a modern distribution, just not every feature at one time. - Eclipse19, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Notice he said features AND performance. Firefox has more/better features, no one contests that, but at the cost of having to be quite bulky. Takes a while to load and takes a lot of memory, nobody contests that either. Right now with "Google homepage" and this "Digg" page, I'm at 99 meg. I presume most of it is taken up by all the extra features I have enabled, huh?
- MrTea, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@rdubya
In that case, you really ought to upgrade to the latest JRE. - DIGGER[NJLP], on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Yet another comment based on stupidity..
- argoff, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3I'm surprised that he didn't mention "top", it is on most Linux distributions (command line) and views the memory/swap/processes in real time, there are also flags that can be added to the 'ps' command to show memory and swap (man ps). You can also learn a lot about processes and memory by poking around the "/proc" directory. I'm surprised that he didn't mention light window managers like "twm" too. It's old, has no features, but is extremely light. In fact, you don't even need a window manager if you check mail with "pine" and browse the web with "links".
- molecule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Reduce your Linux memory footprint"
1. top
2. killall
3. /etc/init.d/ - RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Actually, it runs the OEM version of XP Home just fine. Vanilla Ubuntu is much slower. I think the real bottleneck is the slow Transmeta processor. I was kinda hoping that making more RAM available would offset that in some way.
- irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@biggbrother:
I tried Vector, and it seemed to use more memory than Fluxbuntu. The main problem with this machine is that data gets moved to/from disk so slowly, so as soon as swap is required, it's pretty much dead in the water (it was designed to run Windows 95). I've gotten many years of use out of this little sub-notebook, and I want to see it die with honor due to wear rather than ever letting it collect dust:) - RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Interesting read. I wonder if some of these tips will help Linux actually run at a decent speed on my very non-beefy Transmeta-powered Fujitsu P2120 laptop.
- slack31337, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2use SlackWare or Vector Linux. Vector is a distro made for older PCs (including laptops) or look at DSL (damn small linux) another great low resource distro. With any of these that machine will fly if configured properly
- rdubya, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Also don't run Azureus, it slowed my 2.8Ghz 1Gig ram laptop down to a crawl. Try torrentflux running on a web server, works excellent.
- RodeoRobot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Actually, Damn Small Linux ran pretty well, except it didn't support the P2120's widescreen display, so it looked crappy. I also had problems with the integrated WiFi.
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4Well it would be interesting to see the trade-offs in numbers. Easy install or extreme optimization?
Pop in a CD, or (in my case) forget the jpeg USE flag and have to recompile GNOME again? I'm happy with the optimization in the end. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't think this article is very good, because it points out the very obvious, "use apps that take up less memory". It is a good point to use a lightweight windows manager. That makes all the difference in the world, but it can be said in one sentence.
My question to diggers:
Do you think it really helps a lot to compile your own kernel to match your hardware? I used to do this because, as he says, disto kernels can support tons of different hardware. All of these drivers are compiled as modules, so they shouldn't take up any system memory unless your computer really has that hardware. - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1azureus is java-based and java is a memory hog. I should know because I use it on a daily basis but I have to put in gigs of memory for the application to run correctly. If you look at the programming languages shootout, Java is the top memory (abuser). It's fast now but it loves memory. I would avoid anything java-based if I had an underpowered system. You can upgrade the JRE and try that, or you can optimize it, as I do, via the JVM command line. With Sun's JVM I would use the low pause garbage collector since it's an interactive app, setting the max memory to 100 megs.
- icheyne, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1µtorrent under wine uses little memory. So do ktorrent and deluge (gtk/gnome).
- biggbrother, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't know without seeing your hardware, but it sounds like you've got something else going on. I have seen Vector on machines with as little as 48 mb of ram, and really couldn't tell with programs like Abiword that I was using an old machine. If you haven't done so, you might ask on the Vector forums, because it really should work well for what you're trying to do in the absence of a hardware problem.
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1A small, slightly random tip for people who use irssi - If your in a lot of (fairly active) channels, and run irssi for a long time (Well, a week or longer) - it can start to use a lot of memory up.. If you do
/scrollback status, it'll show you how much memory each window is using, and the total, /scrollback clear clears the current window's scrollback, and /foreach window /scrollback clear will wipe it all.
A friend has irssi running on a machine, which nearly grinds to halt every so often due to irssi, and the scrollback clear thing seems to fix it. (admittedly, it's a fairly weak machine, but still, a lot of text adds up, espically with multiple users)
- Ben - pixelbeat_, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1exmap is a bit obtruse for determining mem usage.
Have a look at my script which summarises mem usage by each program:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/scripts/ps_mem.py - PleaseJustDie, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0my 2.4 ghz with 512 ram runs just fine when azureus is installed, probably the way you have it configured.
- irieKEN, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Oops
- jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Yet another stupid comment on other people's stupidity
- dbr_onix, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1..why would you ever need a process to kill *all* active processes? Isn't that what `shutdown` does..?
- Ben - BigSlacker, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I've noticed a trend lately of taking basic Unix admin stuff and changing "Unix" to "Linux" to make an article about it.
- coolen, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0EasyUbuntu is better. I tried Automatix once, just to see how it went (and because I heard it could install more software).
Biggest gripe is it doesn't seem to care how it gets the extra software. I prefer to keep things within apt whenever possible. That, and it didn't complete and turned my system unresponsive. I did a clean install and used EasyUbuntu. Worked flawlessly. - cachet, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0I have a set up just like the story -- one thing to add; besides the xubuntu and xfce; don't forget automatix -- this autoinstaller will save you many hours for things like java, codexes, and other good stuff.
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