Lowering RAM Use

[dbkats]

I have an old computer which I want to semi-resurrect. It has 512 MB of RAM, which I feel is its biggest bottleneck. Everything I do on this comp, I do with RAM usage in mind. I installed Lubuntu, because I know LXDE is (one of) the lightest on RAM of all the window managers, but even this was not enough. I now use OpenBox, which is barely a desktop environment as it has near-zero functionality. I use Opera as my browser, since I find its RAM use is much more modest than Chromium or FF.

I still feel that 512 MB is quite a lot of RAM (conceptually), and that I should be able to do more with it than I am doing now. Is there anything that I can do to ask (force?) Linux into less RAM?

[|{urse]

my current fav for low ram systems, works on most everything I've put it on.

slax based and uses razor-qt window manager. Its a ~200mb livecd with with an option to install to disk. Not half as polished as lubuntu but fairly easy to configure and is a bit faster. Now if you ran just openbox on that, your system might be faster and use less ram.

http://porteus.org/

[TenPlus1]

Try installing Bodhi LInux 2.3 on your setup as a default install on my Compaq laptop uses only 63mb to run and can tailored to run many light apps instead of their heavy counterparts...

[3rdalbum]

I don't think your RAM is much of a problem. I'm using full Ubuntu with 7 tabs open in Chromium, and using 412 megabytes of RAM.

An older computer with 512mb of RAM probably has an older, slower CPU and GPU. What are the exact specifications of the computer? Really, anything based on Ubuntu is not going to be very lightweight and if this really is an old computer it might be better off with a real lightweight Linux distro.

[nerdtron]

I think 512MB of RAM is still ok for a fairly good performance especially on lubuntu. The slowness you experience might be due to a slow CPU or an old (especially when they are almost full) hard drive. Old hard drives are slow.

[snowpine]

you neglect to mention you ram usage under typical and peak usage. what % of that 512mb is in use? what is the problem exactly that leads you to believe you must lower ram usage? describe the symptoms so we can recommend a cure.