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View Full Version : System Memory Usage Poll - Chime In Please!



w201
January 19th, 2012, 05:37 AM
I'd like to do a quick poll if anyone cares to chime in. Just as a curiosity, I'm wondering how many megabytes of memory your system uses.

As an example, if I open up system monitor, my system is currently using 715 MiB (35%) of 2 GiB of memory.

Obviously ubuntu is resource heavy, which makes it a little slow on older machines. I'm just trying to get an idea if 700+- MiB of memory is standard across the board. What are you guys showing?

***Note*** For this comparison, I'm running ubuntu 11.10, firefox and system monitor were the only processes running and another 146 sleeping at the time I took the measurement.

Peace!

carl4926
January 19th, 2012, 05:46 AM
My R61
(http://paste.opensuse.org/82301067/)

QIII
January 19th, 2012, 05:52 AM
Ubuntu is resource heavy? Mmmmm. Don't know about that, depending on what you are comparing it to. Might be with a particular DE. Are you comparing it to a minimal install of something?

1.2GiB of 24GiB on this machine.

I have a Bodhi (Ubuntu derivative) machine using 54MiB of 256Mib right now with the E17 DE running.

So yeah. Pretty heavy compared to that!

w201
January 19th, 2012, 05:54 AM
http://paste.opensuse.org/82301067
(http://paste.opensuse.org/82301067/)

Whatever you're trying to show me, that site is on strike because of SOPA and PIPA. I'll check again after midnight.

w201
January 19th, 2012, 05:59 AM
Ubuntu is resource heavy? Mmmmm. Don't know about that, depending on what you are comparing it to. Might be with a particular DE. Are you comparing it to a minimal install of something?

1.2GiB of 24GiB on this machine.

I have a Bodhi (Ubuntu derivative) machine using 54MiB of 256Mib right now with the E17 DE running.

I'm comparing it to debian which uses about 80 MiB of 2 GiB. So 700 MiB of memory for ubuntu is normal? I've always thought it was a little heavy on the resources. But I guess compared to debian its not a fair fight.

carl4926
January 19th, 2012, 06:06 AM
Remember 'top' can enlighten


top - 05:04:10 up 7 days, 23:44, 3 users, load average: 0.04, 0.05, 0.26
Tasks: 148 total, 2 running, 146 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 6.0%us, 4.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 85.7%id, 4.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 3063328k total, 1692860k used, 1370468k free, 100144k buffers
Swap: 2465940k total, 17240k used, 2448700k free, 1015128k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
865 root 20 0 124m 31m 6656 R 3.7 1.1 50:47.79 Xorg
28522 kernelcr 20 0 124m 23m 15m S 2.3 0.8 0:00.77 konsole
1690 kernelcr 20 0 300m 59m 30m S 0.7 2.0 10:57.27 plasma-desktop
26951 kernelcr 20 0 614m 174m 35m S 0.3 5.8 5:02.35 firefox-bin
1 root 20 0 5136 2964 1512 S 0.0 0.1 0:01.48 systemd
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.04 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.27 ksoftirqd/0
6 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 migration/0
7 root -2 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:14.34 rcuc0
8 root RT 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcun0

QIII
January 19th, 2012, 06:09 AM
What DE are you using in each? What's running?

I'm using KDE on this box, which is certainly heavier than E17. It's also more feature rich.

Fired up a CentOS 6.2 box. 0.57GiB of 4GiB.

I guess what I am saying is that without some common controls, a comparison like this is of little value.

Unless you have your Debian box running the same DE and the same stuff in the background, the comparison is essentially meaningless.

Is Debian lighter out of the box than Ubuntu with Unity? Certainly.

Both CentOS 6.2 and Bodhi are lighter than my KDE box by just raw memory used at idle after startup, too.

davethewave83
January 19th, 2012, 06:14 AM
I will agree, Ubuntu is resource heavy, but all OS are today. Not too long ago, about 12 years that is, I owned an Apple Macintosh (LC-575) it ran on 8Mb of RAM, still was able to launch SimCity 2000 and run SimpleText in the background. 8Mb! It had sound, color video and didn't lag out a bit.
I did end up upgrading to 16Mb, and boy it made a big difference.

Programmers these days program differently I guess, it's all OOP (Object Oriented Programming) which takes a lot more resources than if they were to program in Assembler.

I tried to find the leanest desktop environment that was still enjoyable, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get it below 100Mb.

100Mb, my old Apple Mac hard drive was a 250Mb SCSI drive, 100Mb Ram is, relatively insane.

Sure the computers are faster these days, but imagine how fast it'd be if it were still programmed to run on 8-16Mb RAM using the technology of today.

Anyways, right now I'm running firefox, Skype, truecrypt, terminal and have a bunch of windows open so this won't be a very fair or accurate reading but I've got 794.4MB consumed in Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) running Gnome 2

that wouldn't even fit on an old trusty CD, I wish someone would do something about the excessive memory usage used by software these days

Fresh Boot Edit: 350Mb fresh boot.

w201
January 19th, 2012, 06:18 AM
What DE are you using in each? What's running?

I'm using KDE on this box, with is certainly heavier than E17. It's also more feature rich.

Fired up a CentOS 6.2 box. 0.57GiB of 4GiB.

I guess what I am saying is that without some common controls, a comparison like this is of little value.

Unless you have your Debian box running the same DE and the same stuff in the background, the comparison is essentially meaningless.

Yea I guess I get what you're saying about the comparisons. Just to clarify, i'm not trying to compare debian to ubuntu, I'm trying to compare ubuntu on my box to other users that are also running ubuntu 11.10. I know different people will be running different processes, but just trying to get a general idea.

On this box I'm running ubuntu 11.10. 700Mib of 2Gib. There's stuff running in the background. Firefox is the only major process I had running at the time I took the measurement.

Running debian xfce on a separate box and it's lighting fast compared to ubuntu. Both systems are set up with the same hardware.

@carl4926- I'm glad you pointed out TOP. Do you know what zombie means? I've always wondered about that.

QIII
January 19th, 2012, 06:25 AM
I would expect Xfce to be a lot lighter. E17 even beats that.

By the way, weighing in at 0.750GiB at startup, at idle and with nothing running is openSUSE with KDE.

This is the joy of Linux. A la carte menu. You can have a salad or a burger.

w201
January 19th, 2012, 06:30 AM
I would expect Xfce to be a lot lighter. E17 even beats that.

By the way, weighing in at 0.750GiB at startup, at idle and with nothing running is openSUSE with KDE.

This is the joy of Linux. A la carte menu. You can have a salad or a burger.

I haven't heard of E17- will look into that.

Did you read my earlier comment about zombie? Can you explain what it is?

QIII
January 19th, 2012, 06:31 AM
Sure the computers are faster these days, but imagine how fast it'd be if it were still programmed to run on 8-16Mb RAM using the technology of today.

You'd have Pong.

I hope you are not under the impression that we don't optimize our code. Well, those of us who don't work for a certain large software company that shall remain unnamed.

:lolflag:

carl4926
January 19th, 2012, 06:34 AM
I would expect Xfce to be a lot lighter. E17 even beats that.

By the way, weighing in at 0.750GiB at startup, at idle and with nothing running is openSUSE with KDE.

This is the joy of Linux. A la carte menu. You can have a salad or a burger.

FYI:
Guess I'm messing up your poll because my stats were openSUSE 12.1 KDE4
I've not done a reboot for about a week and I just dropped out of a VM

Later when I have my eeepc to hand I'll post my Ubuntu info

QIII
January 19th, 2012, 06:36 AM
A zombie process is essentially a child process spawned by another process that has completed execution but still shows in the process table so the parent can read its exit status.

w201
January 19th, 2012, 06:37 AM
FYI:
Guess I'm messing up your poll because my stats were openSUSE 12.1 KDE4
I've not done a reboot for about a week and I just dropped out of a VM

Later when I have my eeepc to hand I'll post my Ubuntu info

No worries. Killing firefox shaved off 200MiB lol.


A zombie process is essentially a child process spawned by another process that has completed execution but still shows in the process table so the parent can read its exit status.

I'm not going to pretend to know what that means, but thanks for the explanation.

xyzzyman
January 19th, 2012, 06:43 AM
I was keeping ubuntu 11.10 < 500MB's until I realized I was being stupid not enjoying having 4GB's of RAM. So I'm at 850MB's of RAM used, but I have chrome with lots of extensions, conky, docky, transmission, 4 indicators running, guake, pidgin, gwibber, shutter. Probably missing other stuff.

There are derivates of Ubuntu meant for older hardware, but 2-4GB's of RAM has been standard for a few years now and Ubuntu is geared towards those systems. It's just hard for alot of us to accept we have more RAM than we need. We live like depression era people 50 years later. With similar software running I've found Windows 7 would be using ~1-1.25GB's, even with unneeded background service turned off, etc..

EDIT: That's 4 indicators that I've added, not counting what is already running by default.

w201
January 19th, 2012, 06:46 AM
I was keeping ubuntu 11.10 < 500MB's until I realized I was being stupid not enjoying having 4GB's of RAM. So I'm at 850MB's of RAM used, but I have chrome with lots of extensions, conky, docky, transmission, 4 indicators running, guake, pidgin, gwibber, shutter. Probably missing other stuff.

That helps a lot. We're running more or less the same processes. So I guess 700+- MiB is average for ubuntu 11.10

davethewave83
January 19th, 2012, 07:24 AM
You'd have Pong.

I hope you are not under the impression that we don't optimize our code. Well, those of us who don't work for a certain large software company that shall remain unnamed.

:lolflag:

simcity 2000 running on 8mb ram with a GUI capable of internet browsing,networking, audio cd, mp3, mov file playing is a bit more than Pong in my opinion.

I'm sure you could probably run pong on less than 128k

I didn't mean to imply there is no attempt at optimization in the code, it's just that todays optimization is not optimal. It's no secret that software is bloated, and wastes a lot of space these days. People take the space for granted because of the advancement in technology, instead of really using optimal code that would run 10x faster and cleaner.

I am not one to complain too much though as I am not a programmer, and if I were, I am sure I would take a lot of the same lazy short cuts that are available today.

so in the end, all is fair. :p

carl4926
January 19th, 2012, 08:19 AM
eeepc Ubuntu 11.10 _64 2D


top - 07:18:04 up 2 min, 1 user, load average: 1.25, 0.64, 0.25
Tasks: 147 total, 1 running, 146 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 4.2%us, 2.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 92.2%id, 1.1%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2046748k total, 1010228k used, 1036520k free, 50356k buffers
Swap: 2313324k total, 0k used, 2313324k free, 485988k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1747 kernelcr 20 0 790m 162m 34m S 14 8.1 0:29.04 firefox
962 root 20 0 144m 11m 5648 S 6 0.6 0:07.45 Xorg
1645 kernelcr 20 0 308m 17m 11m S 3 0.9 0:02.49 gnome-terminal
1807 kernelcr 20 0 82784 13m 9608 S 2 0.7 0:00.74 npviewer.bin
1788 kernelcr 20 0 234m 17m 12m S 2 0.9 0:00.55 plugin-containe
1452 kernelcr 20 0 26900 2696 856 S 1 0.1 0:04.53 dbus-daemon
1545 kernelcr 20 0 374m 18m 10m S 1 0.9 0:02.70 unity-panel-ser
1496 kernelcr 20 0 426m 27m 19m S 1 1.4 0:01.28 unity-2d-panel
1710 kernelcr 20 0 21460 1384 1004 R 1 0.1 0:00.66 top
15 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.10 kworker/3:0
209 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.17 kworker/u:3
832 messageb 20 0 25208 2252 1072 S 0 0.1 0:03.25 dbus-daemon
953 root 20 0 15848 632 460 S 0 0.0 0:00.06 irqbalance
1485 kernelcr 20 0 198m 12m 9496 S 0 0.6 0:01.67 metacity
1491 kernelcr 20 0 20064 908 736 S 0 0.0 0:00.09 syndaemon
1513 kernelcr 20 0 335m 13m 9384 S 0 0.7 0:00.54 nm-applet
1575 kernelcr 20 0 220m 4796 3820 S 0 0.2 0:00.21 indicator-appli

w201
January 19th, 2012, 12:41 PM
eeepc Ubuntu 11.10 _64 2D


top - 07:18:04 up 2 min, 1 user, load average: 1.25, 0.64, 0.25
Tasks: 147 total, 1 running, 146 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 4.2%us, 2.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 92.2%id, 1.1%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 2046748k total, 1010228k used, 1036520k free, 50356k buffers
Swap: 2313324k total, 0k used, 2313324k free, 485988k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1747 kernelcr 20 0 790m 162m 34m S 14 8.1 0:29.04 firefox
962 root 20 0 144m 11m 5648 S 6 0.6 0:07.45 Xorg
1645 kernelcr 20 0 308m 17m 11m S 3 0.9 0:02.49 gnome-terminal
1807 kernelcr 20 0 82784 13m 9608 S 2 0.7 0:00.74 npviewer.bin
1788 kernelcr 20 0 234m 17m 12m S 2 0.9 0:00.55 plugin-containe
1452 kernelcr 20 0 26900 2696 856 S 1 0.1 0:04.53 dbus-daemon
1545 kernelcr 20 0 374m 18m 10m S 1 0.9 0:02.70 unity-panel-ser
1496 kernelcr 20 0 426m 27m 19m S 1 1.4 0:01.28 unity-2d-panel
1710 kernelcr 20 0 21460 1384 1004 R 1 0.1 0:00.66 top
15 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.10 kworker/3:0
209 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0 0.0 0:00.17 kworker/u:3
832 messageb 20 0 25208 2252 1072 S 0 0.1 0:03.25 dbus-daemon
953 root 20 0 15848 632 460 S 0 0.0 0:00.06 irqbalance
1485 kernelcr 20 0 198m 12m 9496 S 0 0.6 0:01.67 metacity
1491 kernelcr 20 0 20064 908 736 S 0 0.0 0:00.09 syndaemon
1513 kernelcr 20 0 335m 13m 9384 S 0 0.7 0:00.54 nm-applet
1575 kernelcr 20 0 220m 4796 3820 S 0 0.2 0:00.21 indicator-appli


Thanks for that!

dak0
January 19th, 2012, 01:54 PM
Hey,

I wonder what's wrong with my RAM Memory?
It`s not that this is new PC its like 5 years, but i paid alot for it back in time, seems like 2GiG of RAM Memory isnt enough for this monster Ubuntu 11.10 ;).

Best Regards

http://i43.tinypic.com/6rm1ax.png

carl4926
January 19th, 2012, 02:24 PM
Linux will use most of the available memory
But you should see, under normal load that most of it is in a buffer.
It can often look bad, when actually it isn't

Habitual
January 19th, 2012, 03:45 PM
http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

Dreamer Fithp Apprentice
January 19th, 2012, 08:49 PM
450 mb for me right now. I rarely run into memory problems any more. When I do, it's almost always nautilus. It helps if you disable all previews in nautilus preferences.

ubiquitin.jf
January 19th, 2012, 09:44 PM
1.3GB running Firefox and Banshee. I have 8GB so that's not an issue; Everything feels nice and snappy.

Crunchbang boots on this machine at 89MB.

CharlesA
January 19th, 2012, 10:22 PM
Moved to CC.

I haven't really noticed Ubuntu being that much of a resource hog. My desktop box is running Firefox and Bluefish, but it is running as a VM with 512MB of RAM.


charles@Lucid:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 494 486 7 0 7 81
-/+ buffers/cache: 397 96
Swap: 894 265 629


Server box is running one VM, and a few other services:


charles@Thor:~$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 5981 5599 381 0 271 4339
-/+ buffers/cache: 988 4992
Swap: 17523 0 17523

bouncingwilf
January 19th, 2012, 10:32 PM
10.4.3 with firefox and system monitor and its saying 327.0Mb of 1.9 GB (16.8%)

I never seem to get any memory problems

Bouncingwilf

Dry Lips
January 19th, 2012, 10:54 PM
1.0 GB out of 3.6 GB (=4 GB) RAM. Firefox uses 273. megs, Thunderbird 59.


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3709 2155 1554 0 155 824
-/+ buffers/cache: 1175 2534
Swap: 0 0 0

bodhi.zazen
January 19th, 2012, 11:13 PM
My Gentoo install + Openbox + tint2 uses 66 Mb of RAM

http://bodhizazen.net/img/thumb.gentoo.png

Unity uses about 225 Mb RAM. Of course with Ubuntu there is a bit more then just Unity running.

My VM has 1 Gb ram and us using 218 Mb (KDE)


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 998 780 218 0 166 385
-/+ buffers/cache: 228 770

See : linux ate my ram (http://www.linuxatemyram.com/)

It is all relative, but, considering anything resembling modern hardware comes with at least 1 Gb ram, 200-300 Mb seems rather reasonable.

cariboo
January 20th, 2012, 12:09 AM
I'm running Precise alpha 1 so ram usage is a little higher than normal


free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2003 1889 113 0 137 882
-/+ buffers/cache: 869 1134
Swap: 1999 0 1999