FC3 sucks. It takes up too much memory!

[Mark Eggers]

On Wed, 2005-01-26 at 22:49 -0800, John Wendel wrote:
> Edward Yang wrote:

> I have to agree with Edward Yang about memory usage, though I can't 
> comment about Windows. I have been using Linux for 5 years and I'm 
> really disturbed by the memory bloat in the current crop of desktop 
> applications.

Please repeat after me:

Linux is not the desktop applications.
Linux is not Gnome/ KDE / Xfce / Fluxbox / Afterstep.
Linux is not Apache / Tomcat / Mysql / Postgres

These are all environments and applications that run on top of Linux.
The 2.6.10 kernel has actually gotten BETTER at memory, thread, and
process management.  My total memory usage for a stock environment has
been reduced.

I run a pretty abused system (Apache, Tomcat or Jonas, Postgresql,
Mysql, cvs).  My web server has lots of modules loaded, including
mod_mono, mod_perl, mod_python, and php.  I run Cocoon under Tomcat.  I
run a complete development environment - mostly Netbeans for coding,
Emacs for straight text editing, Bluefish or jEdit for web page work,
and Gimp for graphics.

I usually have a terminal window open, a web browser with multiple tabs,
Evolution mail, Pan (news reader), a system monitoring application,
Emacs, Netbeans or jEdit or Bluefish, and xmms.  If I'm writing web
pages, I have IE running under Wine (Crossover Office) as well.

All this is done on a Dell 8200 with 768 M memory and a 60 GB hard disk.
The performance for a single person (me) is reasonable.  I can even shut
down a lot of the stuff and play Unreal Tournament acceptably.

-- snip example about yum chewing up memory --

Again, this is an APPLICATION level issue.  If there is an issue (which
I don't doubt), then this issue should be taken up with the APPLICATION
authors.  For example, the Pan authors have started up again and are
working diligently on both memory and responsiveness issues.  I think
this is great.  If I have the time I will certainly offer to help.  I
will at least test snapshots of the code and report back on the damage
(good or bad).

> I know that unused memory is wasted memory but really folks, test your 
> apps on low memory machines! Swapping sucks. I won't even start to 
> comment on the current crop of bloated pig mail readers, browsers and 
> office suites.

I agree that some of the APPLICATIONS have gotten out of hand.  Again,
find those applications which are lighter in memory usage.  Or
contribute to your favorite application with time, testing, and
carefully written bug reports.

-----
/mde/
just my two cents . . . .