Whu does Ubuntu use so much resources

[RobGoss]

I wish there was documentation explaining RAM usage. My system running 19.10 is only using 750MB of RAM at idle. It only has 2GB of RAM and nothing is currently being used in swap.

I would have to say your machine is doing well with Ubuntu 19.10. I have Mate installed on one of my machines and it's using about the same as yours

[RobGoss]

Hello,

actually in ubuntu flashback it uses slightly less or the same which is ~1GB in my system. In ubuntu classic it goes higher than that and with a quick look ~ 1.2GB. Have you checked which is the resource hungry cause that uses so much ram?
ps ux and system monitor will provide you more info.

Regards!

Thanks a bunch I'll have to check on that

[RobGoss]

TheFu's I'm with you on that I don't need a lot on any system. I am a minimalist so I'm always getting rid of software that's not needed

[RobGoss]

How did you check usage? using vmstat I get: 647824 K used memory, and free=6486376

With system monitor it shows what using much of the Ram but I will have to take another look

[mc4man]

I've just downloaded Ubuntu 19.10 to give it a spin and notice it uses 2- GIG of Ram just to keep this system going with noting running.

Don't see anything close.
With gnome-shell/mutter around 600 MB used.
With unityshell/compiz around 525 used.

[Artim]

Have you got some stuff running "in the background" that might be burning up RAM? Like Bluetooth, Samba, network sharing, antivirus or daemons you don't need?

[Tadaen_Sylvermane]

Unused ram is wasted ram. These days computers have so much ram its stupid. Might as well use it for something. Post results of

free -h

I'd post mine for comparison but I'm ripping dvds so my ram is fat right now.

Look at your actual available ram, not what's used. May be cache load. Linux uses ram like it's supposed to, doesn't let it sit and waste itself.

[Skaperen]

Unused ram is wasted ram. These days computers have so much ram its stupid. Might as well use it for something. Post results of

free -h

I'd post mine for comparison but I'm ripping dvds so my ram is fat right now.

Look at your actual available ram, not what's used. May be cache load. Linux uses ram like it's supposed to, doesn't let it sit and waste itself.

i like to see a low ram usage right after i boot up. i like to see zero swap usage because swapping is slow. with ssd swapping will be faster but ram is still the fastest so if it all can stay in ram that makes it the fastest. so why do i want to see the usage be a small fraction of ram? why do i use xubuntu so that it is? why do i like to see so much available ram? do i get any benefit from that number? so that i can use that ram for myself!

lt2a/forums /home/forums 20> free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:            15G        6.3G        454M        1.8G        8.9G        7.2G
Swap:           15G        2.3M         15G
lt2a/forums /home/forums 21>

[QIII]

I wouldn't use swap at all on an SSD. That's a lot of read/write operations. Swap was used back when RAM was precious and disk space was slightly less precious. RAM is now dirt cheap. 4GB goes a long way. 8 GB is a lot. 16GB is probably overkill for the vast majority of users. Someone running a heavily used server might want to use swap for scaling, but it's really unnecessary for a desktop user, IMO.

You ARE using that RAM for yourself. Linux maintains buffers and cache in RAM to make things faster. Rather than having to re-read a file from disk, maintaining it in memory means the next time you want to work on it it is already in memory without having to be read from disk. If the memory is needed later for some other task, the OS will sacrifice some memory from an older task to make room for something new.

Unless it is due to a leak (which is NOT what most people think it is. An application's use of excessive memory beyond what is really needed is not a leak. The failure of an application to release memory when it dies is. That memory cannot be recovered by the kernel and it can grow to the point where the OS fails.), you should be happy about the RAM being used. That makes things faster for you.

It is a misconception to think that memory use is a bad thing in Linux. It is a good thing.

With regard to RobGoss' question, your use may indicate something amiss. All the forgoing notwithstanding, there are times when RAM use is excessive -- indicating that a lot of needless processes may be running or one process in particular may be running wild.

You can use

top

to find out what is using all the memory. It could be that the eye-candy is gobbling it, something that really is irritating.

[Skaperen]

actually i think i need even more than 16G. so maybe 64G in my next one. i use a lot. i could run more things in the cloud.