I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed to
gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10
minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up
top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.16
Tasks: 111 total, 3 running, 108 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 2.0%us, 1.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.7%si,
0.0%st
Mem: 2003384k total, 703040k used, 1300344k free, 18636k buffers
Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 265856k cached
This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up
top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.12
Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
0.0%st
Mem: 2003384k total, 476996k used, 1526388k free, 16508k buffers
Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 185312k cached
Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome uses
226044k less Ram.
This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if
you have just 1 GB of RAM.
73 Karl
Re: Ram use by Steve Reilly on
2009-06-20T22:47:02+00:00
Karl Larsen wrote:
> I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
> measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed to
> gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10
> minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
>
>
> This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up
>
> top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.16
> Tasks: 111 total, 3 running, 108 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> Cpu(s): 2.0%us, 1.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.7%si,
> 0.0%st
> Mem: 2003384k total, 703040k used, 1300344k free, 18636k buffers
> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 265856k cached
>
>
> This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up
>
> top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.12
> Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
> 0.0%st
> Mem: 2003384k total, 476996k used, 1526388k free, 16508k buffers
> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 185312k cached
>
>
> Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome uses
> 226044k less Ram.
>
> This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if
> you have just 1 GB of RAM.
>
>
> 73 Karl
>
>
kde has always been a memory hog, i gave it up in my suse days after the
kde4 atrocity was released. i understand it hasnt gotten much better
over the years as you can already tell by your research. its nice to
look at, but not functional at all on lower end machines. tried it once
on this T42 with a gig of ram, and pent M 1.6ghz. not a speed demon,
but not a dog either, still broken, still has missing icons, etc, and
was completely unusable. of course this isnt meant to bash any desktop,
simply stating my experience, ymmv.
steve
Re: Ram use by n3mo on
2009-06-20T22:54:44+00:00
Sorry about my bad English.
2009/6/21 Steve Reilly <sfreilly@roadrunner.com>
> Karl Larsen wrote:
> > I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
> > Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
> > measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed to
> > gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10
> > minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
> >
> >
> > This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up
> >
> > top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.16
> > Tasks: 111 total, 3 running, 108 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> > Cpu(s): 2.0%us, 1.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.7%si,
> > 0.0%st
> > Mem: 2003384k total, 703040k used, 1300344k free, 18636k buffers
> > Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 265856k cached
> >
> >
> > This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up
> >
> > top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.12
> > Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> > Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
> > 0.0%st
> > Mem: 2003384k total, 476996k used, 1526388k free, 16508k buffers
> > Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 185312k cached
> >
> >
> > Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome uses
> > 226044k less Ram.
> >
> > This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if
> > you have just 1 GB of RAM.
> >
> >
> > 73 Karl
> >
> >
>
> kde has always been a memory hog, i gave it up in my suse days after the
> kde4 atrocity was released. i understand it hasnt gotten much better
> over the years as you can already tell by your research. its nice to
> look at, but not functional at all on lower end machines. tried it once
> on this T42 with a gig of ram, and pent M 1.6ghz. not a speed demon,
> but not a dog either, still broken, still has missing icons, etc, and
> was completely unusable. of course this isnt meant to bash any desktop,
> simply stating my experience, ymmv.
>
>
> steve
>
>
> lass=3D"gmail-quote">
2009/6/21 Steve Reilly <span dir=3D"ltr"><<a href=3D"mailto:sfreilly@roa=
drunner.com">sfreilly@roadrunner.com</a>></span><br><blockquote class=3D=
"gmail-quote" style=3D"border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0=
pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">
<div><div></div><div class=3D"h5">Karl Larsen wrote:<br>
> =A0 =A0 I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome=
.<br>
> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to<br>
> measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed t=
o<br>
> gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10<b=
r>
> minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:<br>
><br>
><br>
> This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up<br>
><br>
> top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, =A02 users, =A0load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.1=
6<br>
> Tasks: 111 total, =A0 3 running, 108 sleeping, =A0 0 stopped, =A0 0 zo=
mbie<br>
> Cpu(s): =A02.0%us, =A01.0%sy, =A00.0%ni, 96.0%id, =A00.0%wa, =A00.3%hi=
, =A00.7%si,<br>
> 0.0%st<br>
> Mem: =A0 2003384k total, =A0 703040k used, =A01300344k free, =A0 =A018=
636k buffers<br>
> Swap: =A04096564k total, =A0 =A0 =A0 =A00k used, =A04096564k free, =A0=
265856k cached<br>
><br>
><br>
> This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up<br>
><br>
> top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, =A02 users, =A0load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.1=
2<br>
> Tasks: 113 total, =A0 1 running, 112 sleeping, =A0 0 stopped, =A0 0 zo=
mbie<br>
> Cpu(s): =A01.0%us, =A00.0%sy, =A00.0%ni, 99.0%id, =A00.0%wa, =A00.0%hi=
, =A00.0%si,<br>
> 0.0%st<br>
> Mem: =A0 2003384k total, =A0 476996k used, =A01526388k free, =A0 =A016=
508k buffers<br>
> Swap: =A04096564k total, =A0 =A0 =A0 =A00k used, =A04096564k free, =A0=
185312k cached<br>
><br>
><br>
> =A0 =A0 Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome u=
ses<br>
> 226044k less Ram.<br>
><br>
> This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if<=
br>
> you have just 1 GB of RAM.<br>
><br>
><br>
> 73 Karl<br>
><br>
><br>
<br>
</div></div>kde has always been a memory hog, i gave it up in my suse days =
after the<br>
kde4 atrocity was released. =A0i understand it hasnt gotten much better<br>
over the years as you can already tell by your research. =A0its nice to<br>
look at, but not functional at all on lower end machines. =A0tried it once<=
br>
on this T42 with a gig of ram, and pent M 1.6ghz. =A0not a speed demon,<br>
but not a dog either, still broken, still has missing icons, etc, and<br>
was completely unusable. of course this isnt meant to bash any desktop,<br>
simply stating my experience, ymmv.<br>
<font color=3D"#888888"><br>
<br>
steve<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class=3D"h5"><br>
<br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br>
Re: Ram use by Rashkae on
2009-06-20T23:00:28+00:00
Steve Reilly wrote:
> Karl Larsen wrote:
>> I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
>> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
>> measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed to
>> gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10
>> minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
>>
>>
>> This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up
>>
>> top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.16
>> Tasks: 111 total, 3 running, 108 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>> Cpu(s): 2.0%us, 1.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.7%si,
>> 0.0%st
>> Mem: 2003384k total, 703040k used, 1300344k free, 18636k buffers
>> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 265856k cached
>>
>>
>> This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up
>>
>> top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.12
>> Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>> Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
>> 0.0%st
>> Mem: 2003384k total, 476996k used, 1526388k free, 16508k buffers
>> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 185312k cached
>>
>>
>> Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome uses
>> 226044k less Ram.
>>
>> This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if
>> you have just 1 GB of RAM.
>>
>>
>> 73 Karl
>>
>>
>
While it's been my experience that KDE is memory hungry as well, Karl
neglected to subtract cache and buffers from his memory usage. When you
do, the difference is 143MB. And without knowing more about what
services are running on each system, and how much memory will get shared
with other apps, that kind of difference is really not much from which
to draw any kind of conclusion.
Re: Ram use by Karl F. Larsen on
2009-06-20T23:07:06+00:00
>>> minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
>>>
>>>
>>> This what kumbutu has at 10 minutes after a boot-up
>>>
>>> top - 15:41:02 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.11, 0.20, 0.16
>>> Tasks: 111 total, 3 running, 108 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>>> Cpu(s): 2.0%us, 1.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 96.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.3%hi, 0.7%si,
>>> 0.0%st
>>> Mem: 2003384k total, 703040k used, 1300344k free, 18636k buffers
>>> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 265856k cached
>>>
>>>
>>> This is what Gnome has at 10 minutes after boot-up
>>>
>>> top - 15:54:00 up 10 min, 2 users, load average: 0.00, 0.12, 0.12
>>> Tasks: 113 total, 1 running, 112 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>>> Cpu(s): 1.0%us, 0.0%sy, 0.0%ni, 99.0%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
>>> 0.0%st
>>> Mem: 2003384k total, 476996k used, 1526388k free, 16508k buffers
>>> Swap: 4096564k total, 0k used, 4096564k free, 185312k cached
>>>
>>>
>>> Notice that it is 703040k and 476996k which shows that Gnome uses
>>> 226044k less Ram.
>>>
>>> This is nearly half again as much as Gnome and .226Gb can be a lot if
>>> you have just 1 GB of RAM.
>>>
>>>
>>> 73 Karl
>>>
>>>
>
> While it's been my experience that KDE is memory hungry as well, Karl
> neglected to subtract cache and buffers from his memory usage. When you
> do, the difference is 143MB. And without knowing more about what
> services are running on each system, and how much memory will get shared
> with other apps, that kind of difference is really not much from which
> to draw any kind of conclusion.
>
Not correct. The cache and buffers are NOT in my results. My results
are accurate.
73 Karl
-
Re: Ram use by Sandy Harris on
2009-06-20T23:35:28+00:00
> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
> measure this. ...
Why not Xubuntu? That seems the obvious choice if you are concerned
about memory use.
Heres my 4 gig machine several days after the last reboot, with as
usual both Firefox & Open Office running.
Tasks: 121 total, 1 running, 120 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 18.5%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 81.1%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi, 0.0%si,
0.0%st
Mem: 3086844k total, 1726468k used, 1360376k free, 188388k buffers
Swap: 8024k total, 0k used, 8024k free, 603820k cached
=3D"border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; p=
adding-left: 1ex;">
=A0 =A0I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.<br>
Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to<br>
measure this. ...</blockquote><div><br>Why not Xubuntu? That seems the obvi=
ous choice if you are concerned<br>about memory use.<br><br>Heres my 4 gig =
machine several days after the last reboot, with as<br>usual both Firefox &=
amp; Open Office running.<br>
<br>Tasks: 121 total,=A0=A0 1 running, 120 sleeping,=A0=A0 0 stopped,=A0=A0=
0 zombie<br>Cpu(s): 18.5%us,=A0 0.3%sy,=A0 0.0%ni, 81.1%id,=A0 0.0%wa,=A0 =
0.0%hi,=A0 0.0%si,=A0 0.0%st<br>Mem:=A0=A0 3086844k total,=A0 1726468k used=
,=A0 1360376k free,=A0=A0 188388k buffers<br>
Swap:=A0=A0=A0=A0 8024k total,=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0 0k used,=A0=A0=A0=A0 80=
24k free,=A0=A0 603820k cached<br><br><br clear=3D"all"></div></div><br>
Re: Ram use by Barry Pohlman on
2009-06-21T00:44:56+00:00
Another thing to consider is the programs you use most. KDE based
programs use the QT libraries and Gnome is based on the GTK+ libraries.
It may be that Kubuntu loads the GTK+ libraries by defaults but QT
libraries are not loaded in Gnome. I may just be speaking non-sense but
and idea of where some of the discrepancy may be located.......
I know when I got to install some programs via apt-get I have to get all
the QT libraries that support it. Just a thought
Sandy Harris wrote:
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Karl Larsen <klarsen1@gmail.com
> <mailto:klarsen1@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
> measure this. ...
>
>
> Why not Xubuntu? That seems the obvious choice if you are concerned
> about memory use.
>
> Heres my 4 gig machine several days after the last reboot, with as
> usual both Firefox & Open Office running.
>
> Tasks: 121 total, 1 running, 120 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
> Cpu(s): 18.5%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 81.1%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi,
> 0.0%si, 0.0%st
> Mem: 3086844k total, 1726468k used, 1360376k free, 188388k buffers
> Swap: 8024k total, 0k used, 8024k free, 603820k cached
>
>
>
>
Re: Ram use by Smoot Carl-Mitchell on
2009-06-21T03:10:25+00:00
On Sat, 2009-06-20 at 16:13 -0600, Karl Larsen wrote:
> I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
> measure this. I used top to get the data and I saved the part needed to
> gedit which you can get on both kubuntu and gnome. I took data at 10
> minutes after boot-up. Here is the data:
You need to be careful about how you interpret these kind of results,
especially on a demand paged virtual memory system like Linux. The more
critical measure for responsiveness (which I think is the critical
measure for a desktop system)is likely the paging rate and especially
the pageout rate. Paging is very expensive when compared to memory
access time. vmstat is a crude, but useful tool to measure this sort of
metric. If you run:
vmstat 5
watch the si and so columns, especially the so column which is the page
out rate to swap. That is a measure of pages being written to the swap
device(s). iostat which is part of the sysstat package can also be
useful.
A more useful test would be to run vmstat 5 or iostat and then operate
the desktop in a typical fashion and see what the paging rate looks like
over time. If you have sufficient memory the page out rate should be
very low. A high paging rate indicates memory starvation and the system
will start to thrash. In vmstat you will see processes blocked waiting
for I/O.
With all this said, I do think running Gnome or KDE with 1GB of memory
is a tad tight with a typical desktop mix of applications. But memory
is very cheap these days and adding memory can be a lot simpler and more
cost effective than trying to optimally tune up the virtual memory
system.
I run a Linux server with 1GB of RAM. It is interesting to watch the
memory utilization over time. The graphs are here:
http://www.c-m.us.com/~smoot/RRD
What you see is the buffer and cache utilization go up significantly
when the system does a lot of I/O. The spikes in the graphs corresponds
to when I run an rsync cron job to do nearline backups. The "free"
memory pool stabilizes at a low percentage over time.
Re: Ram use by Knapp on
2009-06-21T06:03:18+00:00
On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:42 AM, Barry Pohlman<barry.pohlman@gmail.com> wrote:
> Another thing to consider is the programs you use most. KDE based
> programs use the QT libraries and Gnome is based on the GTK+ libraries.
> It may be that Kubuntu loads the GTK+ libraries by defaults but QT
> libraries are not loaded in Gnome. I may just be speaking non-sense but
> and idea of where some of the discrepancy may be located.......
>
> I know when I got to install some programs via apt-get I have to get all
> the QT libraries that support it. Just a thought
>
> Sandy Harris wrote:
Going with this line of thought did you use kdm or gdm?
Why do we live?
Re: Ram use by Jensen Somers on
2009-06-21T08:00:59+00:00
On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 01:04, Karl F. Larsen<klarsen1@gmail.com> wrote:
> how this actually works.
>
>
> - - Jensen
Re: Ram use by Barry Pohlman on
2009-06-21T08:40:15+00:00
Knapp wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 2:42 AM, Barry Pohlman<barry.pohlman@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Another thing to consider is the programs you use most. KDE based
>> programs use the QT libraries and Gnome is based on the GTK+ libraries.
>> It may be that Kubuntu loads the GTK+ libraries by defaults but QT
>> libraries are not loaded in Gnome. I may just be speaking non-sense but
>> and idea of where some of the discrepancy may be located.......
>>
>> I know when I got to install some programs via apt-get I have to get all
>> the QT libraries that support it. Just a thought
>>
>> Sandy Harris wrote:
>
> Going with this line of thought did you use kdm or gdm?
>
I just used the default that comes with the ubuntu disc. I am assuming
that it uses gdm. The package that usually installs QT libraries for me
is the vlc. This package depends on QT and GTK libraries. The link for
the package is ->
http://packages.ubuntu.com/jaunty/vlc
Hope you find your solution..
Barry
Re: Ram use by Karl F. Larsen on
2009-06-21T11:10:28+00:00
> I know when I got to install some programs via apt-get I have to get all
> the QT libraries that support it. Just a thought
>
>
I have not tried to explain why kubuntu uses more ram. I am not aware
of the QT and GTK+ libraries. But calling both libraries into RAM would
explain the more RAM use.
73 Karl
>
>
>
> Sandy Harris wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 6:13 AM, Karl Larsen <klarsen1@gmail.com
>> <mailto:klarsen1@gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> I was curious to determine if Kubuntu uses more RAM than Gnome.
>> Since I have both on my laptop in version 8.10 I decided to try to
>> measure this. ...
>>
>>
>> Why not Xubuntu? That seems the obvious choice if you are concerned
>> about memory use.
I am not concerned about memory use.
>>
>> Heres my 4 gig machine several days after the last reboot, with as
>> usual both Firefox & Open Office running.
>>
>> Tasks: 121 total, 1 running, 120 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
>> Cpu(s): 18.5%us, 0.3%sy, 0.0%ni, 81.1%id, 0.0%wa, 0.0%hi,
>> 0.0%si, 0.0%st
>> Mem: 3086844k total, 1726468k used, 1360376k free, 188388k buffers
>> Swap: 8024k total, 0k used, 8024k free, 603820k cached
>>
>>
>>
>>
-