Mint 13 on 1Gb ram

[LindseyD.]

I'm really anxious to install Mint 13, but I'm concerned that it says you need 1 GB ram. For Mint 12, we were told

512 MB RAM (1GB recommended for a comfortable usage)

I've only got 1 GB. Does that mean it will be uncomfortably slow?

[BigSteve_G]

Hi,

My main system has 1GB memory & regualy runs Firefox (with a few tabs open), thunderbird, some music player, a few caja windows open, a couple of terminals & Libre Writer (all spread across 5 virtual desktops) & everything runs perfect - even when I crank up a virtual XP machine with 200MB of its own memory - & all with under 5% of swap file (2gig) in use.

Even my old laptop with 512MB runs Mint 13 very well for a machine with a failing hard drive & dodgy cooling fan - odd because Mint 9, 10 & 12 was painfully slow.

[animaguy]

I have a Dell Inspiron laptop with 1 gb ram. I installed a Linux Mint 13 w/xfce desktop.

It takes less than 120 second (thats two minutes) to boot up.

I love it. I think it is superfast.

If you have any problems, I highly recommend you post them on this forum.

[BigSteve_G]

Forgot to mention I'm running Mate desktop, I know Cinnamon & KDE use a lot of memory

[animaguy]

I do not use Mate but it is a popular distro.

All I can vouch for is xfce but xfce has a reputation for being very lightweight in terms of resources.

[LindseyD.]

Thanks for the quick replies, guys.

I wish I weren't quite so addicted to KDE, but I've been using it for too long to want to switch to Mate or xfce.

@BigSteve_G, From what I understand of Linux, it's the 5 desktops that eat a lot of memory, so you give me hope.

@animaguy, my Mint 9 takes about 15 seconds to boot. Unless you're talking about loading the whole desktop?

[claudecat]

Mint KDE runs just fine with 1Gb ram... even better if you disable nepomuk, akonadi and unnecessary startup services. Mint KDE uses less ram at idle than either Fuduntu (Gnome2) or Xubuntu on my lowly HP Mini netbook and is plenty snappy (boots in less than a minute). KDE is only as bloated as you want it to be.

[LindseyD.]

Mint KDE runs just fine with 1Gb ram... even better if you disable nepomuk, akonadi and unnecessary startup services. Mint KDE uses less ram at idle than either Fuduntu (Gnome2) or Xubuntu on my lowly HP Mini netbook and is plenty snappy (boots in less than a minute).

Ah, thanks. That's what I wanted to hear. Now I'm off to the library to download a copy (only got dialup at home).

KDE is only as bloated as you want it to be.

True. I used to run Kubuntu on a 128MB RAM machine. That was KDE 3x, though. It was Nepomuk et al that were really concerning me.

[mlippert]

Mint KDE runs just fine with 1Gb ram... even better if you disable nepomuk, akonadi and unnecessary startup services. Mint KDE uses less ram at idle than either Fuduntu (Gnome2) or Xubuntu on my lowly HP Mini netbook and is plenty snappy (boots in less than a minute). KDE is only as bloated as you want it to be.

I found your comment very interesting. Perhaps you can tell me 2 things:
1) What exactly are nepomuk and akonadi for?
2) How do I disable the startup services you think are unnecessary?

Sounds like something I'd really like to do.

Thanks,
Mike

[claudecat]

I found your comment very interesting. Perhaps you can tell me 2 things:
1) What exactly are nepomuk and akonadi for?
2) How do I disable the startup services you think are unnecessary?

1) they are both involved in indexing your files and other information for retrieval by various applications. Useful in theory, but I've never found a need for it.
2) In System Settings, click on Startup and Shutdown, then Startup Services. Only you can decide what you need, but I typically uncheck bluetooth, write daemon, free space notifier and a few others I can't recall offhand as I'm currently running Cinnamon. There are brief descriptions of each service, and you can use google to find out more if it still seems vague.

In reality, all this fiddling will gain you very little in noticable speed, especially #2. #1 used to be more of a slowdown, but mostly only when doing the initial indexing of your files. KDE has improved in this regard. I disable all this stuff more out of habit than necessity nowadays.

[LindseyD.]

1) they are both involved in indexing your files and other information for retrieval by various applications. Useful in theory, but I've never found a need for it.

Neither have I. Although I'm still on Mint9 when they didn't work anyway. But, as I understand it, you need a [working] Akonadi so that you can use the address book with Kmail. Is that the case, claudecat? Or do you not use Kmail/Kaddressbook?

[claudecat]

Nope, I use gmail mostly via the web, but sometimes with Thunderbird. Not sure about kmail needing akonadi, but it seems likely.

[LindseyD.]

Okay, thanks. I'll be installing with fingers crossed on Kmail, then.

[mlippert]

1) they are both involved in indexing your files and other information for retrieval by various applications. Useful in theory, but I've never found a need for it.
2) In System Settings, click on Startup and Shutdown, then Startup Services. Only you can decide what you need, but I typically uncheck bluetooth, write daemon, free space notifier and a few others I can't recall offhand as I'm currently running Cinnamon. There are brief descriptions of each service, and you can use google to find out more if it still seems vague.

In reality, all this fiddling will gain you very little in noticable speed, especially #2. #1 used to be more of a slowdown, but mostly only when doing the initial indexing of your files. KDE has improved in this regard. I disable all this stuff more out of habit than necessity nowadays.

Thanks, that's helpful, even if I now decide to do nothing, I do that with more knowledge than I had before!