57 programs and not one slowdown... how is this possible?

[Mazza558]

I thought the linux kernel was efficient, but not THIS efficient...

(See attachment)

I'm not sure exactly how it handles memory, all I know is that If I tried this on my windows desktop, I wouldn't be able to do anything. (Has anyone tried pressing Ctrl+A on the windows desktop, then pressing enter? :/). Is it due to the individual programs having no bloat?

[erginemr]

Wonderful testimony indeed. Thank you.

I am planning to refer your post as a proof (with your permission :)) when someone compares Linux to ******* and favors the latter.

[hoagie]

Hmm I want to try this on my pc too, but before I do so, I would like to know the specs of your computer (please) to see if mine can handle it.

And how did you activate the window preview (as shown in the screenshot) ?

Thank you

[beniwtv]

Yes, this is possible, and is one of my main reasons for using Linux.

Enjoy!

[tuebinger]

That's really cool At work if I have more than 4 or 5 programs open on the District's Dell I get a "your system is low on virtual memory" warning!!! :confused:

[bruce89]

Out of interest, I'd like to see the output of

free

[Mazza558]

Wonderful testimony indeed. Thank you.

I am planning to refer your post as a proof (with your permission :)) when someone compares Linux to ******* and favors the latter.

Go ahead :)


Hmm I want to try this on my pc too, but before I do so, I would like to know the specs of your computer (please) to see if mine can handle it.

And how did you activate the window preview (as shown in the screenshot) ?

Thank you

My laptop specs are in my signature. It's a fairly recent laptop (though low spec nowadays). The window preview thing is part of Compiz Fusion, which comes with Ubuntu.


Out of interest, I'd like to see the output of

free

I had a look at the system performance info when I did this, I had about 400mb out of the 1GB free. My cpus were running at about 60-70% usage.

[rudihawk]

That is impressive!

[Martje_001]

And how did you activate the window preview (as shown in the screenshot) ?

Thank you

If I'm not mistaking: ALT + SHIFT + UP

[RebounD11]

I tried it too... went up to 73 apps until I started feeling it slow down... although it might be because a room-mate was downloading files from me and it slowed down my HDD. Forgot to take a screenshot :( but I have people who can confirm it :P

[Bungo Pony]

I've noticed it too, especially when I'm running multiple apps while playing MP3s. On Windows, I'd get jitters while playing music. Never happens in Linux. I've also noticed that I can burn discs while running other apps without the burned disc messing up.

[NightwishFan]

I did this on my test machine. Ubuntu 32-bit and Vista 32-bit. Ubuntu can run all my applications and I still get compiz fusion. I only have 895mb ram. I was called a "dirty liar" when I confirmed Vista could not do the same, and suffered slowdowns even with aero off. :)

I am liking KDE now though, my ram usage is only 268mb on 64-bit. It was double that in GNOME.

[gnome.youbuntoo]

I thought the linux kernel was efficient, but not THIS efficient...

(See attachment)

I'm not sure exactly how it handles memory, all I know is that If I tried this on my windows desktop, I wouldn't be able to do anything. (Has anyone tried pressing Ctrl+A on the windows desktop, then pressing enter? :/). Is it due to the individual programs having no bloat?
i don't agree. My ubuntu is v.slow when i open good no. of programs. (512 MB RAM, Pentium 4) Many times, when i'm viewing videos, the video will not show all frames. Windows Xp is far better at this. Ubuntu can't be perfect. I've accepted it.

[gnome.youbuntoo]

I've noticed it too, especially when I'm running multiple apps while playing MP3s. On Windows, I'd get jitters while playing music. Never happens in Linux. I've also noticed that I can burn discs while running other apps without the burned disc messing up.
surprisingly UBUNTU doesn't multisession burning of CDs. It seriously needs so many improvements.

[Sammi]

i don't agree. My ubuntu is v.slow when i open good no. of programs. (512 MB RAM, Pentium 4) Many times, when i'm viewing videos, the video will not show all frames. Windows Xp is far better at this. Ubuntu can't be perfect. I've accepted it.Probably because video card drivers for Linux aren't very good when compared to what the card manufacturers make for Win. Even Nvidia's graphics card drivers for Linux, which are supposed to the the best graphics card drivers for Linux are slow when compared to their Win implementation.

When it comes to graphics cards, Intel, ATI and Nvidia are really not delivering to us Linux users.

[aaaantoine]

I must be doing something wrong. I also have 1GB RAM, currently only have Firefox, Exaile, Kate, and Pidgin open, and am using 88% of my available memory.

I bet FGLRX (and Compiz) are eating up the rest...

[brennydoogles]

I ended up turning Compiz off completely, because although it is AWESOME to look at, I felt it took up resources without adding anything useful to my computer. I have definitely seen improvement since then.

[aaaantoine]

I ended up turning Compiz off completely, because although it is AWESOME to look at, I felt it took up resources without adding anything useful to my computer. I have definitely seen improvement since then.

I'll probably do that when I install Hardy next month and have compositing in Metacity. I've gotten too used to having AWN.

[tdrusk]

I've done it. i opened every program for Linux Mint.

[hhhhhx]

whoa! my com at school just got slow viewing that pic :lolflag:

[Mazza558]

whoa! my com at school just got slow viewing that pic :lolflag:

I assume your school's PC's aren't all that good?

[Ultra Magnus]

Ok - I didn't manage to get 57 programs but I got a few :

vmware server - winxp
stellarium
evolution
firefox
terminal
emacs
eclipse
inkscape
calculator
gimp
archive manager
system monitor
open office writer
deluge
exaile
skype
gthumb
dictionary
character map

- not the order I open them - started trying to open everything starting with all small "accesories" programs but got board - not too bad through, more than I'll ever have to open at once anyway - didn't have much memory left though.

[Mazza558]

Ok - I didn't manage to get 57 programs but I got a few :

vmware server - winxp
stellarium
evolution
firefox
terminal
emacs
eclipse
inkscape
calculator
gimp
archive manager
system monitor
open office writer
deluge
exaile
skype
gthumb
dictionary
character map

- not the order I open them - started trying to open everything starting with all small "accesories" programs but got board - not too bad through, more than I'll ever have to open at once anyway - didn't have much memory left though.

What are the specs of your PC?

[erginemr]

surprisingly UBUNTU doesn't multisession burning of CDs. It seriously needs so many improvements.

I know that there are CD burning programs for Gnome that can do multi-session. You should try Brasero, GnomeBaker, or K3B:

For more:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=159835&highlight=multisession
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=565601&highlight=multisession
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=297379&highlight=multisession

[qazwsx]

Xorg causes massive memory leak on my machine. About 400 Megs now 4 days xorg uptime. Damn those close sourced NVidia drivers. Oretty slick at boot tough.

[Ultra Magnus]

What are the specs of your PC?

1gb Ram, intel T7600 (2 core 2Ghz) - So quite nippy but nothing overly special

[zmjjmz]

I only have 6 windows open and I'm using up 72% of my 1GB of RAM.
I have an integrated graphics chip running Compiz Fusion, and even turning that off doesn't help...
Not sure what to blame here :/

[knopper67]

lol beat you. I have 65 Programs Open on a 6-year old machine with 512 MB of ram. Now that's impressive. And nothing is slowing down either. Woooooot! :guitar:

Well...compiz is stalling a bit when switching workspaces but that's a different story.

[K.Mandla]

I'm not sure exactly how it handles memory, all I know is that If I tried this on my windows desktop, I wouldn't be able to do anything.
If you haven't seen it before, the Gentoo wiki has a great explanation of how Linux manages memory. It might give you some insight as to why it's possible to run 57 programs and not suffer a slowdown. ;)

http://gentoo-wiki.com/Linux_Memory_Management

[zmjjmz]

I read it, and I have but six programs open, and I'm swapping
(albeit only 33MB)
Something's wrong :/
EDIT: Looks like Xorg is taking up a lot of my RAM... 21%...

[futureproof]

@OP

There are lots of applications 'open' but they dont seem to be doing anything. Could you try it with the following.

1 video playing
2 audio tracks playing (routed to different outputs)
1 steamcast server running
1 torrent client running with 10 torrents open
1 soulseek client running with 10 concurrent tranfers
1 kdx server + client running with 10 connections
1 DC++ hub and client running with 20 connections
1 Browser with 30 tabs open (heavy media content)
5 file browser instances open
1 MAME game running (windowed)
1 DVD burning
1 photoshop open
several other BG programs running

this is what my desktop looks like daily, I don't get slowdown either using a slimmed down XP pro.

[bruce89]

surprisingly UBUNTU doesn't multisession burning of CDs. It seriously needs so many improvements.

Brasero does (the default burner in Hardy).

What about top?

[Joeb454]

What kernel version are you running if you don't mind me asking?

[farruinn]

I must be doing something wrong. I also have 1GB RAM, currently only have Firefox, Exaile, Kate, and Pidgin open, and am using 88% of my available memory.

You should check out http://gentoo-wiki.com/FAQ_Linux_Memory_Management which tells how Linux uses memory quite well and explains it looks like you're using so much.

[PurposeOfReason]

Ok - I didn't manage to get 57 programs but I got a few :

vmware server - winxp
stellarium
evolution
firefox
terminal
emacs
eclipse
inkscape
calculator
gimp
archive manager
system monitor
open office writer
deluge
exaile
skype
gthumb
dictionary
character map

- not the order I open them - started trying to open everything starting with all small "accesories" programs but got board - not too bad through, more than I'll ever have to open at once anyway - didn't have much memory left though.
Well, I mean, you had gimp, ooo, and stelarium going. You wouldn't last long with those, lol.

EDIT - This would be a great time for that suggestion when all 'lol' became 'that's what she said'. :)

[mridkash]

firefox-bin is the process which consumes more memory than any other program on my laptop.

[DUDE_2000]

my dad, on his dual-core dell has a record of 72 firefox windows open, with no slowdown, though firefox seems unstabe at that number, and while running high intensity applications, like MS Visual Studio, and MS Office

[airtonix]

and if im not mistaken hes running compiz/beryl?wahtever its called now?

[airtonix]

I only have 6 windows open and I'm using up 72% of my 1GB of RAM.
I have an integrated graphics chip running Compiz Fusion, and even turning that off doesn't help...
Not sure what to blame here :/


el oh el : blame this -> integrated graphics chip

[derekr44]

derek@silverbox:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2074908 2021248 53660 0 6204 195516
-/+ buffers/cache: 1819528 255380
Swap: 6072528 571040 5501488


52 programs running and no hiccups. I could open a lot more... Programs included Totem, VirtualBox (running XP), lots of games, all OpenOffice programs, two cd burning programs, Exaile, Evolution, Firefox with multiple tabs, several instances of Thunar... to name a few.

Can't figure out how to do the screen with all windows tiled.

AthlonXP 3500+, 2GB RAM, nVidia 7600GT, XFCE

[gashcr]

OK, 65 programs running like a breeze ( no difference at all in performance ), compiz fusion enabled, amarok playing Therion disc :guitar:

Free stats

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2075816 1878604 197212 0 14916 594268
-/+ buffers/cache: 1269420 806396
Swap: 3968012 31540 3936472

AMD Athlon x2 4000+, 2GB RAM, Ati x1550,

[GSF1200S]

Haha.. dont know how many programs, but a windows VM at 512MB and Diablo 2 under wine were part of it....

[Martje_001]

This is great!
My specs: Sempron 2400+ (1.67 Ghz) and 512 MB RAM.

[panda726]

I have run in excess of 100 windows (not actual programs), including firefox, konqueror, thunderbird (my mail files > 1GB!) gimp, gwenview, openoffice (quite a few docs, and a few spreadsheets), KPDF, and probably others I am forgetting. This is in real usage, browsing, editing and printing docs, checking email, editing pictures (yes, I had gimp with open photos).

Computer:
3GHz P4, no hyperthreading
1.5GB RAM
128MB NVIDIA FX5200 video card, running two screens, one 1920x1200, one 1280x1024.

The verdict? Ran very well for me. I seem to recall that either the power went out (hibernate isn't working properly, but it isn't worth fixing now), or I had to halt for hardware reasons (faulty storage HDD cable).

Tor

[hhhhhx]

does this count?
http://stashbox.org/92154/Screenshot-2.png

[Tuna-Fish]

I thought the linux kernel was efficient, but not THIS efficient... . Is it due to the individual programs having no bloat?

Partly.

Probably the biggest part is that basically all libraries are shared between processes. Windows and Linux do shared libraries mostly the same way, that is if two processes need the same library, it is loaded in memory only once, and they both use the same copy.

However, in Windows application developers cannot trust anything but the very basics from the platform. So they (and 'they' here includes me :( ) generally just include everything their program needs to run in the package. When you do this, libraries cannot be shared, because they might not be the same version, or even the same implementation. And even if they were, because they exist in different places on the disk and might even be integrated to the exe, it doesn't help.

Debian, and by extension Ubuntu, however is a tightly integrated system that guarantees the availability and integrity of a ridiculous amount of libraries. So, developers use them and all the programs share most of their memory use.

So, while the efficiency of the linux kernel helps somewhat, the real target for the kudos are the debian and ubuntu devs.

[chris4585]

i've actually tried to see how many apps i could get up at the same time before, it was amazing i opened just about everything i could, literally and my pc was fine, it was running at 51% of ram as you can see in my picture

my pc stats, 2gb ram, 2.6ghz cpu


http://i27.tinypic.com/ny7nfo.jpg

[Jim!]

If I'm not mistaking: ALT + SHIFT + UP
Cheers dude didn't even know I could do that!:)

[Mazza558]

Partly.

Probably the biggest part is that basically all libraries are shared between processes. Windows and Linux do shared libraries mostly the same way, that is if two processes need the same library, it is loaded in memory only once, and they both use the same copy.

However, in Windows application developers cannot trust anything but the very basics from the platform. So they (and 'they' here includes me :( ) generally just include everything their program needs to run in the package. When you do this, libraries cannot be shared, because they might not be the same version, or even the same implementation. And even if they were, because they exist in different places on the disk and might even be integrated to the exe, it doesn't help.

Debian, and by extension Ubuntu, however is a tightly integrated system that guarantees the availability and integrity of a ridiculous amount of libraries. So, developers use them and all the programs share most of their memory use.

So, while the efficiency of the linux kernel helps somewhat, the real target for the kudos are the debian and ubuntu devs.

Ah, thanks. That clears things up a bit.


OK, 65 programs running like a breeze ( no difference at all in performance ), compiz fusion enabled, amarok playing Therion disc :guitar:

Free stats

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2075816 1878604 197212 0 14916 594268
-/+ buffers/cache: 1269420 806396
Swap: 3968012 31540 3936472

AMD Athlon x2 4000+, 2GB RAM, Ati x1550,

I've been beaten!

I'll try and get 66 up next... :)

[LifeSign]

Tried this on my Mac pre-Ubuntu....

Results: 30 Programs running simultaneously.

Post Ubuntu 6.06 (PPC Powerbook)...

60 programs, mint. I actually had to download some programs specifically to up the number of programs...I'm ecstatic about the switch.

Simply couldn't believe it without trying it myself.

[Daveski]

You must remember that Linux (*nix) has always been a multiuser OS. There is little difference between you running 50 apps, and 5 users running 10 apps each. Imagine how useless a multiuser system would be if one user was decoding music, and another was getting choppy video because of the first users tasks. This is proper multitasking.

Obviously the more work the CPU is doing, the slower everything will become, but most hi-spec modern machines do not hit 100% CPU utilisation unless there is some serious crunching going on (games for example). The other resource here is memory, and of course if 1 or 2 tasks are consuming most of the memory, then everything else will suffer - and there will be less memory to cache libraries and I/O. As mentioned before, the Linux kernel is pretty good at managing memory, so unless you have insane memory requirements for your apps, then it should be no surprise that you can have so much running at once.

[00arthuryu]

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/8630/screenyct7.th.jpg (http://img206.imageshack.us/my.php?image=screenyct7.jpg)
73 programs including running vista and XP in virtualboxes (with IE7 and IE6 running respectively too) so maybe 75 if you count them as well XD lol

although i was slightly upset that when trying to do the cubeness, it was unbelieveably slow. The animation and switching of desktops did not slow down though, just the cubeness thing. However, i was using over 2GB but about 1.2GB was used by the 2 virtual machines. :( Ubuntu only uses around 250MB by itself

running on
5600+ AMD Athlon X2
3GB DDR2 RAM
7900GS Nvidia

i would be interested to see what a quad core will be able to achieve :D
:popcorn:

[Ub1476]

Goal of the day: 100 Firefox windows open.

Centrino Duo, 1,44ghz with 1GM RAM.

[zmjjmz]

el oh el : blame this -> integrated graphics chip

Yeah, I'm going to get a discrete one on my next laptop...

[Samhain13]

I thought this would be fun so I tried it myself. But I was only able to get around 17 applications open in my machine-- because I ran out of applications to open.

(See attached image)

From a four-year-old 32-bit processor and 1GB of RAM (from top-left to right):

1. Firefox (two tabs), with this thread loaded and the image that came with the OP.
2. VLC, playing the movie, Stardust.
3. Bluefish, with a small PHP script loaded.
4. Inkscape, with a 2ft x 1ft vector image loaded.
5. VLC, playing a small OGG file that I made.
6. Konqueror, home screen.
7. Flash 8 Professional running in Wine, with a project loaded.
8. The GIMP tools window.
9. Opera, with my website's index page loaded from my local web server.
10. Agave.
11. Blender, with one object (cube) loaded.
12. MySQL Administrator, connected to a local MySQL server.
13. The GIMP image window, with a 1600px x 1200px @72dpi image loaded.
14. Phatch.
15. Scribus, with a 4ft x 2ft, full-colour poster file loaded.
16. Amaya (two tabs), with 2 XHTML files loaded.
17. Exaile, playing an MP3 file from playlist.
18. Pidgin, connected to Yahoo! network.
19. Gnome Terminal.
20. The GIMP auxillary window.
21. Evolution Mail client, with one message loaded.

All happening while Advanced Desktop Effects are enabled.
The Cube still animates nicely, so does Scale.
Memory used, 700+ MB and 3% Swap.

:guitar:

[DKD]

Howdy recently found and installed Ubuntu from the seemingly much unloved windows and Mac just too see. stumbled across this topic so thought hmmm ave to give it a go, i managed around 80 before i got bored on Ubuntu "i'm a believer!' wow windows the smallest programs i could find, XP btw, managed about 15 b4 i thought i was kiddin my self it slowed ages ago. MAC is on diff unit but that has trouble managing 1 so wont even bother.

heres my screenshot, hopefully

[terry_gardener]

i have also done this before using video files. i have just did it again running music video files.

23 music video files running at the same time.

used just over 26% ram and average between 85 -90% CPU usage.

couldn't notice any stuttering but hard to watch 23 videos at once. also pressed the mute button on keyboard so could not hear 23 video files sounds running at the same time.

i was very impressed with this.

[MONODA]

yeah it rocks doesnt it? I do that with my computer but instead I select all the documents in a folder and press enter (thats like 100 documents!) however, it crashes when I have compiz on (stupid nvidia driver :P).I have seen a video on youtube where a guy tries to open 4000 folder and it crashes :'(