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Reduce Your Ubuntu Linux Memory Footprint
An anonymous reader writes "The ideas in this article will help you breathe life (and some additional security) into your old Linux machines and make better use of Linux on aging hardware. In this article, learn how to accurately measure the amount of memory your Linux system uses. You also get practical advice on reducing your memory requirements using an Ubuntu system as an example. A lack of physical memory can severely hamper Linux performance. This will help you reduce your systems memory footprint and keep your old Linux system running the latest fully featured Linux applications smoothly."
This "article" is practically content free. It compares Firefox's memory usage to Lynx. What the fuck?
How about some REAL information? Not "advice" such as And the distribution you WERE talking about was Ubuntu. How about some FACTS that are directly related to Ubuntu?
A better title for this article would have been "Generic advice on how to see how much memory an application may use on Linux".
Is the author a 12 year old on work placement or is that article marked 'intermediate level' for some other reason?
What I'd like to know is whom, exactly, the target audience for this article is. At a glance, one would assume that the target is for someone relatively unfamiliar with Ubuntu, attempting to make it run more efficiently on a slower system. However, all the article states is _what_ to do. I could be wrong, but I would say that anyone unfamiliar enough with Ubuntu (or Linux in general) to actually need this information would not have any idea how to actually implement these changes. So is the article then targeted for experienced Ubuntu users who are trying to streamline a system? I would wager that any Linux user savvy enough to know how to implement the stated changes would also be savvy enough to have already made them. The article is a good premise to start from, I suppose, but in its current state I don't see how it is really helpful to anyone.
Running smaller apps with less functionality MAY reduce your memory usage!
This article would be great if it had non-obvious content. Outside of the advice of "use things that don't use as much memory", the only thing the article provides is "find a way to make your favorite apps use less memory", and then some ambiguous and non-definitive help on 2.6's swappiness setting. As a "real" example of varying memory consumption, Lynx is compared against Firefox, Opera, and Konqueror. Great! Why not look at mutt vs. Thunderbird and KMail? irssi vs. XChat? And then why not just say "hey -- why not just use everything on the console/in ncurses?" Not that this is too surprising, the article is entirely about memory consumption, and only mentions lost features as a passing thought. (Disclaimer: I'm not ragging on any of the apps above, so don't start the flames.)
Not that the advice is bad, especially the section on looking for useless services and kernel bloat, but the rehash of it for the umpteenth time is just... *sigh* The section on swap is a bit misleading, as well. It is right, as it is written, but it fails to mention that swap is a good thing; if you're swapping out your running applications all the time, yes, something is wrong (your workload for the hardware, most likely), but otherwise you want to see swap being used. It makes room for stuff you're actually using. There are some clever VM behaviors out there (one example putting pages in swap *in case* they will need to be swapped out later [thus saving you the trouble]), but I don't remember which are in the default kernel.
Here's some real advice for running Linux (or anything) on old hardware: be rational. Ignore what machines you have and decide what you want. Then when you've done that, figure out what you want on your desktop, and what you just want. Offload anything that you don't need to have right in front of you. Want apache to serve a couple dinky files to friends? Okay, great, put THAT on your old P2. MythTV backend sucking up some cycles on the desktop? Move it to a VIA EPIA box and let it hog there and leave your desktop for desktoppy things. Being "lean" isn't worth it if it means you're ditching functionality you want. Don't try to struggle against old hardware if you want an awesome desktop and Beryl and the whole shebang. Sometimes you just have to let go of that 133 MHz Pentium you loved a decade ago.
Kill the flamethrowers. The article is about Ubuntu, not Gentoo. If you have a burning need to build a package from source, Gentoo-style, in a Debian or Debian-daughter system, consider apt-build which will get the job done for you.
Otherwise, the article was a very sensible discussion on installing the guts of a 'modern' distro--in this case Ubuntu--on some less than current hardware. Another such discussion is in the LowMemorySystems page in the Ubuntu wiki.
The important thing to take away, in any case, is the non-trivial lesson that you cannot have your cake and eat it, too: installing on limited hardware means understanding your hardware limits and considering your packages accordingly. (I hear bearded Slackers in the back chortling. Hush, you, let me finish first.),
Interestingly, the article confirms what I've been doing on my own IBM Thinkpad 570e lately. My only question to whomever still might be reading this is: is there a lightweight CSS-compatible browser that's not a memory pig on the order of Konqueror or even Firefox? Dillo works well enough, but I'm wondering if there isn't maybe a browser between Dillo and the heavyweights.
Your brief comment still contains more information than the original article did. In fact, with a little bit of work it COULD be far better than the original. And I do mean "little".
#1. You've identified apt-build.
1a. What happens when the package is updated? Does it automatically recompile itself? Does it change the upgradeable status? Does it have ANY effect on the ease of upgrade/maintaining a Debian/Ubuntu system? (No, No, Yes - you have to recompile the updates each time). Is there an easy SCRIPT to use to do it automagically?
#2. What apps would be the best to recompile in terms of memory savings or increased speed? I'm talking about the default apps installed on a default install.
#3. Speaking of default installs, what services are installed, by default, on a default install and what do they really mean? What ones COULD I disable (and how to disable them easily) based upon whether I want specific functionality or not (I don't use bluetooth, I don't have a scanner, etc). And
THAT would be a useful article.
You guys sound like you've never done any tuning. TFA accurately points out how you can go about making decisions about what apps to run to reduce memory usage. TFA isn't specifically about (X)Ubuntu, it just happens to be the system he's testing on, in the same way that the 800Mhz processor happens to be the CPU he's testing on. He shows memory usage comparisons for different window managers, browsers and office apps, at two different memory configurations, to show where the swapping/thrashing starts. Geez, lighten up. As with ALL tuning questions, the REAL answer is "it depends".
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Run KDE!
This is a general HOWTO, nothing directly related to Ubuntu.
is there a lightweight CSS-compatible browser that's not a memory pig on the order of Konqueror or even Firefox?
Opera, if you can stand the interface (or if you can figure out how to customize the interface - what a mess *that* process is, but worth the effort if you can figure it out).
I agree the article is largely content free. It doesn't say how to free up memory while using Ubuntu. It suggests using different distros (like Xbuntu).
/. worthy?
Different distros are aimed at different levels of computing power?
Is this
The only thing that made this article worth my thirty seconds is that I was shocked to see in every category, the KDE apps used less memory than the Gnome apps.
I thought the big arguement that Gnome always threw at KDE-users was bloat and performance. Most KDE apps offer more customization, more options, more features, and apparently use less memory these days.
I can't wait to see comparisons once everything is ported to the even faster and leaner QT 4.2
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop
and then log back in and set your session to xfce.
I'm running it on a 128 meg imac with a 333 MHz G3. It ran like molasses with ubuntu. It runs fast now and I no longer want more ram.
I just bought a GB of RAM on ebay for $45 for my old 600 MHz server.
Trying to squirrel more functionality out of less RAM is a waste of time.
Everything flies so much faster when you have a nice big cache under you.
rm -rf / (as root)
Not only this definitely optimizes your disc space usage, but also memory allocation within few seconds of operation.
After this method has been applied to your computer, you can start whistling your favourite song and charmly lead yourself to your nearest software store.
(This advice has been kindly brought to you by M$)
While the author does a lot of benchmarks and stuff, the information he gave isn't really anything new or informative.
Klingon Software is not released, it escapes, inflicting terrible damage onto the enemy as it does
Back in the day when I was trying to run X in 8mb on my 486 in 1995, and upgrading to 16 meg would have cost me about $400 or more, I was optimisation crazy, and you really could make some good gains. There comes a point of diminishing returns though...
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
When I try that, I keep getting messages saying "Are you sure you want to do this?" followed by "Are you *really* sure you want to do this?" and "Are you *really*, ..., *really* sure you want to do this?" God damn, the new security panel is annoying!
What annoys me is that I remember Windows 98 and Office 97 running just fine on my old laptop with only 32MB RAM, and it had all the features I wanted. But even with an upgrade to 128MB RAM the laptop is slowed to near uselessness even by Xubuntu. Fluxbox is fast enough so I know it's possible. But the integration and ease of use of fluxbox and the other lightweight window managers I've tried is far below Windows 98.
Still I think we would all be better off in the long run if we switched to Linux because of the freedom, versatility, customizability, fixability, and price. If the playing field between Linux and Windows were level, that is if we were free from the lockin of hardware and software compatibility, I think Linux is good enough it could win today. Linux is still a little harder to use than windows, but then there was a time when Windows beat out superior operating systems like OS2 and MacOS.
I think the article a parody onto itself.
By being unnecessarily obvious, and bloated mostly with a lot of useless information, it is trying to hog the reader's memory, the way processes might hog the system's. Thus, once the reader learns how to filter out the irrelevant and obvious stuff from the article, he can proceed to do the same to their Linux installation, reducing the memory requirement.
Bloody genius, I say. Brilliant!
apt-get install kazehase should install it. (I don't know if it is in anything other than
It is lighter than the XUL (Firefox, SeaMonkey, IceApe, Iceweasel) or Gnome (Galeon, Epiphany) Gecko browsers browsers. Last time I used Kazehakase, it was fine on a 200mhz machine with 64meg ram and window maker. Skipstone was another gtk web browser, but as far as I can tell it has been dead for a while now.
Work bio at MMWD
WM: Dump metacity etc for sawfish (or even smaller fluxbox).
/etc/inittab comment out respawn:getty tty3-6).
File manager: Dump nautilus for rox.
Terminal: Drop gnome-terminal for rxvt.
Email: use sylpheed.
Web browser: use dillo.
Word processor: use AbiWord.
Spreadsheet: gnumeric
Reduce the number of virtual terms (ctrl-alt-f1 through f6) from 6 to 3 (in
start "top", sort by memory use ("M" once running) and start examining what daemons you don't need. (/etc/init.d/)
Yes, you too can run a modern & functional linux on a Penium75 with 32mb RAM.
~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.