fluxbox memory

[lawman]

memory takeup seems to be about 40mb on dsl with fluxbox.

why is it around 196mb on mint with fluxbox?

is there a way to make this supersmall?

thanks

[xvedejas]

why is it around 196mb on mint with fluxbox?

I have no idea. This doesn't sound right to me; running gnome only uses about 124mb on my machine...

[lawman]

double checked and it's 195mb when started up on my sony vaio.

even worse is that fluxbuntu is only 49mb when started up.

why does mint have such a large memory footprint and can this be reduced?

thanks

[ShadeTree]

Apples to Oranges. DSL is still usiing kernel 2.4, the 2.6 kernel will use a great deal more cache,

YOU could have looked this up just as easily as I did.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/inde ... sidered.3F

ShadeTree

[exploder]

I have AntiX running on an old Dell, it is Fluxbox based. AntiX is using 30 MB of RAM at startup. AntiX is built different than any other Fluxbox based system I have tried. AntiX uses a 2.6.22 kernel and it does not use very many gnome packages. Slim is used in place of GDM and nothing extra is set to run at start up. This is one of the most interesting light systems I have ever seen. IceWM is included as well on the 359 MB ISO. This distro will save many machines from the scrap heap!

Fluxbuntu ran horrible on the same machine.

[merlwiz79]

mintUpdate was probably about 60MBs, but the update is suppose to help lower that.
Also there are other things that are autostarted, like wicd and the desktop icons.
These can be removed by editing the config file.

[lawman]

as stated, antix uses 2.6, yet manages a small footprint.

fluxbuntu is based on ubuntu 7.10, same as mint flux - yet the ram size difference is massive. 49mb v 195mb.

fluxbuntu has desktop icons and connection to chosen network too, so no obvious additional functionality that i can see in mint flux to justify the massive difference. looked at the running services, and unticked the obvious not needed ones, but still running in at 175mb.

this might be a separate issue or not; but why do programs load as slow on mint flux as they do on xubuntu or even ubuntu? fair enough, it's all from disk - but when using programs from fluxbuntu (or even dare i say dsl which is not stored in ram), they load MUCH faster.)

just at a loss why flux on mint doesn't feel like the same speed that it is on other systems.

thanks

[lawman]

i was using conky for the memory usage figures.

started using 'free' command which gives more accurate and even more depressing results.

Code: Select all

user@mint:~$ free
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       1026096     372956     653140          0       7600     167148
-/+ buffers/cache:     198208     827888
Swap:      1164672          0    1164672


372mb used by mint flux on startup. of this 198mb is used by programs and rest by buffers/cache.

i really thought mint flux was going to be the speedy answer that I was looking for, but sadly it's not. Memory issues aside (or because of?), it's just no way near as fast as other lightweight distros.

Starting to burn other light ubuntu distros now to consider an alternative.

[exploder]

I think that the memory use in the Fluxbox Edition can be fixed with a little fine tuning. I recently was experimenting with Mint Fluxbox on an old pc and got the memory use down by quite a bit. I disabled the services I did not need to run, it gained me 33 MB of RAM.

We will have to wait for the Elysa version and see how things look.

[ShadeTree]

I think that the memory use in the Fluxbox Edition can be fixed with a little fine tuning. I recently was experimenting with Mint Fluxbox on an old pc and got the memory use down by quite a bit. I disabled the services I did not need to run, it gained me 33 MB of RAM.

We will have to wait for the Elysa version and see how things look.

If he wanted to, he could have use 'top' to figure out what was using the memory space, he's just come back three times to complain because he doesn't know what he's doing. No comparative analysis or anything, it doesn't matter, any 2.6 kernel is going to use more than what he's used to. I never heard the specs on any system or the name of another disto that even compares, chances are he's tried everything and nothing will fit the memory footprint he thinks he needs.

ShadeTree

[lawman]

hi,

true, i'm a total newbie on linux. I was just trying to find something that feels as fast as humanly possible on a given pc. Not really interested in the flame culture but just some helpful advice and discussions.

regarding kernel 2.6, this argument doesn't seem to work when I look at dsl-n which also uses 2.6 and weighs in at lower than 50mb, sometimes even 25mb when i've looked at it.

Same with anti-x. Ubuntulite is approx 56mb with 2.6 kernel.

I've also noticed that memory usage aside, there is an issue with speed. CrunchBang Linux (openbox based on ubuntu 8.04), has about the same memory usage as mint flux, but is way faster - why?

Just hoping for some answers on why mint flux is slow and high on memory compared to other flux/openbox/icewm implementations of ubuntu.

thanks.

[shane]

hi,

196MB seems a bit too much if i remember correctly... i don't remember it being that high.

anyway, right now on the Elyssa ISO i have so far, on a fresh install with all the default applications running, at boot it is using 26% of 256MB RAM (according to conky) which would mean 66.56MB RAM. After removing the applications that are started by the fluxbox startup script i am getting 15% of 256MB at boot, which is 38.4MB. The figures were somewhat similar for the Daryna Beta... and I think this is pretty good.

If you further want to slim things down you can turn off services... like CUPS, bluetooth, etc... and i'm sure you will get closer to something that you are looking for... but you would be wrong to think you can have a very light system and keep all the bells and whistles... I have said it before... I am not aiming for another DSL... I like the lightness and speed of fluxbox but i also want the functionality, ease of use and aesthetics of Mint. and that is how Linux Mint Fluxbox came about... in search of a good compromise.

One more thing... seeing that you are a new Linux user, there is something you probably do not know. Linux and Windows (XP at least) handle RAM very differently. Windows tries to empty out RAM and keep as much as it can free... whereas Linux tries to fill it up. Why? you may ask... this is because memory in RAM is accessed many, many times faster than memory in swap (page files) on the HD... and so having as much as possible cached in RAM actually improves performance! This is probably why you are getting the large figures on RAM usage... search on google... i'm sure you'll find better explanations from others in the know...

anyways... enough ranting... cheers.

PS. if you really want something that is super small... then I suggest you go for a distro that was meant to be super small... like DSL or Puppy... even the PCLinuxOS trimmed down distro which has OB and FB... i forget the name of it...

[exploder]

If he wanted to, he could have use 'top' to figure out what was using the memory space, he's just come back three times to complain because he doesn't know what he's doing. No comparative analysis or anything, it doesn't matter, any 2.6 kernel is going to use more than what he's used to. I never heard the specs on any system or the name of another disto that even compares, chances are he's tried everything and nothing will fit the memory footprint he thinks he needs.

ShadeTree

You could at least use proper punctuation in your attempt to insult me. (run on sentences)

exploder

[lawman]

ok shane,

thanks for the helpful response. i guess a compromise it will have to be.

so far, mint flux and crunchbang seem to be the best compromise i've found in terms of ease of use for ubuntu based distros.

thanks again.

[shane]

for historical reference... this was the post where i proposed the goals of Mint FB...

http://linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=39017#p39017

[dennyhalim.com]

i got just what you're looking for.
http://wiki.dennyhalim.com/ubuntu-minimal-desktop