Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Gentoo Forums
Quick Search: in
Linux with a Gig of ram
View unanswered posts
View posts from last 24 hours

 
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Kernel & Hardware
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
arkane
l33t
l33t


Joined: 30 Apr 2002
Posts: 918
Location: Phoenix, AZ

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 4:14 pm    Post subject: Linux with a Gig of ram Reply with quote

Has anyone ran Linux with a gig of ram?

Just wondering... I'm debating between 512 and a gig for an upgrade I'm going to be doing (full system upgrade)
I know what people are going to say, "go with the gig, it's cheap" but it's not... DDR ram is kinda pricey, relatively. How well does Linux handle that memory, or KDE for that matter? I'm running 384mb right now, and it's rediculous how much KDE uses of it...

If your running KDE, do you have a decent amount of resources left over to do other tasks with a gig? I can't believe I'm asking this, considering how relatively large a gig was only 2 years ago.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
tgnb
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 16 Apr 2002
Posts: 208
Location: New York, NY

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 4:21 pm    Post subject: seems to be fine for me Reply with quote

I got about a gig of RAM, most of it is only cached RAM. I run KDE and it is fine. Sometimes Mozilla leaks memory, but that can be fixed by restarting the app.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
arkane
l33t
l33t


Joined: 30 Apr 2002
Posts: 918
Location: Phoenix, AZ

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 4:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Cool... thanks for the input :D
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
tsuru
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 19 Apr 2002
Posts: 99
Location: Nashville, Tennessee, USA

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 8:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I've been running 1 Gig ddr ram for about 7 months now with Gentoo. I have no complaints thus far. I believe there is a certain point when you don't need a 2 x MEM for your swap because at 1 gig I don't think I've seen my machine swap in linux ever. Therefore I have about 100 mb swap right now just in case. Just remember if you go for 1gig you need to enable the HIMEM option in the kernel.

I briefly ran GNOME at the beginning of my Gentoo newbie stage but decided that both GNOME and KDE were too bulky for me/had too many bells and whistles that I didn't need and switched to XFce. I must say though one of my pet peeves about linux or maybe it's just top, I don't know, is the way memory is reported. I don't know if you are basing your KDE frets off of top or actual "feel" but I frequently get reports that programs like mozilla is taking up 200 MB with 6 intances. Initially I couldn't believe that moz would take up that much, and I was right, it was only really taking up the normal 30mb or so. if a program has several intances going in the same address space top likes to add them together when they really are only taking up the space of one.

hope that helps in some way :|

--tsuru
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
friedmud
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 18 Apr 2002
Posts: 258
Location: Austin, TX USA

PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 8:31 pm    Post subject: Arkane... Reply with quote

How do you know KDE is actually using So much RAM??

You know that you can't trust the numbers in "free" right?? You can't trust them because linux will leave an instance of every program you open in memory as long as it still has space (it will start dropping out the older ones when you need the memory for something else). This is done so that programs start very quickly after the machine has been on for a couple of days (because if you have enough RAM everything is read out of RAM instead of off the HD).

I am personally running with 512MB of SDRAM and Linux never gets close to hitting swap (which is how you can tell your running out of memory). Also note that I am running KDE with EVERYTHING turned on (and with 5 backgrounds - with unlimited cache, custom icons, liquid and everything else).

I think a Gig would be a huge waste. You would never even hit a quarter of that in regular desktop usage.

Derek
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Guest






PostPosted: Fri May 10, 2002 8:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i am in kde now with mozilla and konqueror open and of the 512mb of ram i have 412 or it is free....i dont think you need a gig unless your running a server otherwise you should put the money toward bettering your hardware maybe...if you need anything...but sounds to me like you have an app that is not letting go
Back to top
Psychephylax
n00b
n00b


Joined: 10 May 2002
Posts: 44
Location: Smithtown, NY

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2002 2:38 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I concur...
A gig of ram is very unnecessary unless you're planning on running Oracle or hosting a high volume server.

Even windows doesn't need more than 400 megs of ram.
A better investment would be more hard drives or a bigger monitor. Everything looks better at 1600x1200 :-D
_________________
Stupidity, like hydrogen, is one of the basic building blocks of the Universe.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
illumin8
Guest





PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2002 2:25 pm    Post subject: I've been running 1 GB of DDR-RAM in my Gentoo Server Reply with quote

I've been running a gig of DDR PC-2100 in my Athlon XP1700 Server that runs Gentoo. I've got about 10 MaxSQL databases on it, running InnoDB atomic transactions on MySQL, with PHP and Apache and Perl. I love it because I can crank my InnoDB cache up to about half a gig and the database really flies. It performs as good as Oracle and supports atomic transactions.

But you're right, for a desktop machine, a gig is a little bit overkill right now, but who knows, 6 months from now when KDE 6.0 is out, you might need it... Seems to me the KDE user interface is getting more bloated than Windows now... Looks nice though.

By the way, Gentoo makes a _great_ server. Despite the bleeding edge hiccups every now and then, my server runs screamingly fast. Much better than it would on Redhat or Mandrake, that's for sure. Plus, Gentoo is a lot more like traditional Unix and conforms to the standard file locations better than most linux distros, so it's pretty nice.
Back to top
JefP@@
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 09 May 2002
Posts: 179
Location: Belgium

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2002 4:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Yow guys, I'm using kde3 on my amd k7 800 with 200 mbs of sdram (128mb + 64mb). I have no complaints about performance at all... (only dnetc is a little slower when there are a few proggies running :P, but that's not realy ram usage related) So I guess, you guys with 1Ghz of DDram should have no probs running kde etc.

Grtz
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ASCI Blue
Tux's lil' helper
Tux's lil' helper


Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 132

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2002 5:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

T-bird 750, 384 megs, only prob I've ever had was with Xine's config getting cranky and using 99% of my CPU power to do everything. Quick del and restart fixed it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
vert
Apprentice
Apprentice


Joined: 07 May 2002
Posts: 214
Location: Delft, The Netherlands

PostPosted: Sat May 11, 2002 6:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm running (actually compiling at this moment) kde3 with 768MB (Tbird 1300) and never saw it use SWAP. And usually I got quite some stuff running (for a desktop system at least :wink:) So in my opinion a gig also is a bit of an overkill. Go for more storage or a bigger (second?) screen.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Gentoo Forums Forum Index Kernel & Hardware All times are GMT
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum