RAM limit and diagnostic tools

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Brock44
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RAM limit and diagnostic tools

Post by Brock44 »

Hi Everybody.
After more than a year of procrastinating, I finally installed Mint 18.3 Sylvia Cinnamon as a dual boot with WIn7. I am in the process of moving everything over to Mint and am determined to leave Win behind except when I need to go back for a couple of apps I will occasionally need there.

The switch has been a challenge. I love Mint but I have quite a few problems I'm working to iron out. and more seem to pop up all the time. I am determined. I will post about specific problems elsewhere if I can't find solutions on my own, but I will start here.

Does Mint have a limit on the amount of RAM it will use? I can really push my systems but using a lot of resource hungry apps at the same time but in Win my system could handle it. At this pont in Mint, not so much. I will post my stats below but I have 24GB of RAM installed, soon to be 32GB, in Win I would often see RAM usage creep up to about 22GB mostly due to my problematic use of my Vivaldi browser, I really have to clean up some of those 300 plus open tabs, I am working on it. haha. But with Mint I have never seen RAM usage go beyond 7GB in HTOP or system monitor. I have also never seen swap used. Its always zero.

I am experiencing system freezes once or twice a day, display problems under certain conditions, some app problems, sound problems at times.. Of course when the system freezes, I can't get to my open instances of HTOP, the terminal or anything else to see what's happening but I am wondering if I am bumping up against some RAM limit that is causing problems. If there is a limit, can I change it?

Also are there any good diagnostic tools you might know of that can help me figure things out? One of my favorite things about WIndows was Process Explorer, as well as all the other sysInternals tools. I really miss those.

System Monitor never seems to give any kind of accurate indication of CPU usage, I have never seen anything above 4% on that. Someone has made a very spare and really pretty useless Linux version of process Explorer.

The learning curve is pretty steep but I am up to the challenge and look forward to having a powerful and stable Mint experience. I am committed.

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Memory:    Array-1 capacity: 32 GB devices: 4 EC: None
           Device-1: ChannelA-DIMM0 size: 4 GB speed: 1600 MHz type: DDR3
           Device-2: ChannelA-DIMM1 size: 8 GB speed: 1600 MHz type: DDR3
           Device-3: ChannelB-DIMM0 size: 4 GB speed: 1600 MHz type: DDR3
           Device-4: ChannelB-DIMM1 size: 8 GB speed: 1600 MHz type: DDR3
b@YMint ~ $ inxi -Fxz
System:    Host: YMint Kernel: 4.13.0-41-generic x86_64 (64 bit gcc: 5.4.0)
           Desktop: Cinnamon 3.6.7 (Gtk 3.18.9-1ubuntu3.3) Distro: Linux Mint 18.3 Sylvia
Machine:   System: ASUSTeK (portable) product: G75VW v: 1.0
           Mobo: ASUSTeK model: G75VW v: 1.0 Bios: American Megatrends v: G75VW.207 date: 04/06/2012
CPU:       Quad core Intel Core i7-3610QM (-HT-MCP-) cache: 6144 KB
           flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 18357
           clock speeds: max: 3300 MHz 1: 1290 MHz 2: 1328 MHz 3: 1361 MHz 4: 1273 MHz 5: 1401 MHz 6: 1342 MHz
           7: 1377 MHz 8: 1307 MHz
Graphics:  Card: NVIDIA GF114M [GeForce GTX 670M] bus-ID: 01:00.0
           Display Server: X.Org 1.18.4 drivers: nvidia (unloaded: fbdev,vesa,nouveau)
           Resolution: 1920x1080@60.01hz, 1920x1080@60.00hz
           GLX Renderer: GeForce GTX 670M/PCIe/SSE2 GLX Version: 4.5.0 NVIDIA 384.111 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio:     Card-1 Intel 7 Series/C210 Series Family High Definition Audio Controller
           driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
           Card-2 NVIDIA GF114 HDMI Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
           Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture v: k4.13.0-41-generic
Network:   Card-1: Intel Wireless 7260 driver: iwlwifi bus-ID: 03:00.0
           IF: wlp3s0 state: down mac: <filter>
           Card-2: Qualcomm Atheros AR8151 v2.0 Gigabit Ethernet
           driver: atl1c v: 1.0.1.1-NAPI port: d000 bus-ID: 04:00.0
           IF: enp4s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:    HDD Total Size: 28505.6GB (60.0% used) ID-1: /dev/sda model: Samsung_SSD_850 size: 500.1GB temp: 0C
           ID-2: /dev/sdb model: ST2000LM015 size: 2000.4GB temp: 39C
           ID-3: USB /dev/sdc model: EFRX size: 6001.2GB temp: 0C
           ID-4: USB /dev/sdd model: 2105 size: 6001.2GB temp: 0C
           ID-5: USB /dev/sde model: EFRX size: 6001.2GB temp: 0C
           ID-6: USB /dev/sdg model: EFRX size: 3000.6GB temp: 0C
           ID-7: USB /dev/sdh model: EFRX size: 3000.6GB temp: 0C
           ID-8: USB /dev/sdf model: 41AS size: 2000.4GB temp: 0C
Partition: ID-1: / size: 31G used: 11G (39%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda4
           ID-2: /home size: 202G used: 18G (10%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda6
           ID-3: swap-1 size: 52.33GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap dev: /dev/sda5
RAID:      No RAID devices: /proc/mdstat, md_mod kernel module present
Sensors:   System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0C mobo: N/A gpu: 0.0:56C
           Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: 2600
Info:      Processes: 352 Uptime: 3:13 Memory: 7671.4/24064.7MB Init: systemd runlevel: 5 Gcc sys: 5.4.0
           Client: Shell (bash 4.3.481) inxi: 2.2.35 
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Pjotr
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Re: RAM limit and diagnostic tools

Post by Pjotr »

There's no practical RAM limit for 64-bit Linux Mint.... The theoretical limit for 64-bit should be 2^64 = 16 777 216 TB (yes that's Terabyte). In reality the amount of RAM is probably limited to 2^48 aka 256 TB of RAM.

Unless you're into supercomputing (all, or nearly all, supercomputers in the world are running on Linux, by the way), this'll never become a concern for you. :mrgreen:
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2017/11/lin ... rcomputers

The freezing is bad, though.... Shouldn't happen. Try the latest kernel of the 4.15 series:
Update Manager - panel: View - Linux kernels

After installing it, reboot.

If that doesn't help, try disabling all of the visual effects in Cinnamon:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... n-Cinnamon
(item 7.1, right column)

For system monitoring you can also use the terminal command top, and of course the priceless Conky:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... forxubuntu

Gotta love Conky.... It's a tweakers' dream. :mrgreen:
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
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Brock44
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Re: RAM limit and diagnostic tools

Post by Brock44 »

Hey Pjotr.

Thanks for the info.

I didn't phrase my RAM question quite right. I know the 64 bit address space, I really meant to ask are there any policies or restrictions in Mint or the kernel as to how RAM is allocated or managed by the OS and if so, can I adjust those? I was worried that my problems might be due to some kind of artificial memory wall of 8GB causing the system to run out of resources. Right now I have apps loaded up and running which in Win7 would show up to 20GB RAM usage but HTOP is showing I'm using only 5.3 (while also showing buffers at 7.7 and cache at 9.9) and swap at zero. On this system I have never seen my RAM usage rise above 8GB.

But maybe I just have to get used to the idea that Mint uses RAM MUCH more efficiently than Win. so maybe the source of my problems lay in the kernel I was using. I have upgraded the kernel to 4.15.0-22. I'll see if that helps things.

Conky looks interesting. I'll mess around with that. Thanks
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Pjotr
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Re: RAM limit and diagnostic tools

Post by Pjotr »

Brock44 wrote: Sun May 27, 2018 2:56 am But maybe I just have to get used to the idea that Mint uses RAM MUCH more efficiently than Win.
It does. :)
Tip: 10 things to do after installing Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia
Keep your Linux Mint healthy: Avoid these 10 fatal mistakes
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donalduck
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Re: RAM limit and diagnostic tools

Post by donalduck »

Hi Brock44,

I see your first post in this forum ages back 2016, so I guess you have been tinkering with linux mint for 2 years, right ?

Do you like command lines shell terminal ?

man is your friend, there is plenty of useful documentation installed along your OS.
make sure beforehand you have read the man and info "meta" help files

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man man

info info
as far as your memory issue is concerned, have you looked at

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man free

man vmstat

man sar

man -k limit
notes that info tool can have additional documentation, for example look at

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info free

BTW logs files in /var/log have quite valuable information too ;)
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