Memory use (was: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian)

From	Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.user
Subject	Memory use (was: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian)
Date	2023-03-21 03:10 +0100
Message-ID	<GbzBL-dX61-1@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References	<GbwXf-dTth-1@gated-at.bofh.it> <Gbx6V-dTwj-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <GbycG-dUum-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

Show all headers | View raw

> https://wiki.debian.org/RISC-V#ASIC_implementations.2C_i.e._.22real.22_CPU_chips
> lists only "small" SoC systems , not something that looks like I would
> like to compile something the size of LibreOffice on. In that list the
> highest memory supported seems to be 8GB... Nowadays software seems to
> be _very_ memory hungry, my desktop isn't running anything particular
> (just X11, XFCE, terminals, mutt, emacs, firefox, instant messenging
> stuff, nextcloud desktop) and... "free -m" says 10437 used (I
> understand that's _without_ buffers and cache), Firefox clearly takes
> at least 2GB if not 3B (main process 1GB RES in top and then many
> "Isolate Web Content" processes taking 100MB to 340MB, they add up!),
> Telegram has RES of 600MB plus 465MB swapped (!!!), etc.

Reminds me: back around the beginning of the 2010s I realized that the
3GB limit on my Thinkpad T60 would be a problem in the long run but most
replacements were either wider (hence not fitting in my backpack) or
shorter (hence losing screen real-estate), so I bought a second hand T61
with the same size and aspect ratio, but with a chipset which could go
up to 8GB.

Nowadays my main laptop is that T61 (with 8GB) and
my office desktop is a Librem mini (with 24GB of RAM).
While Linux manages to make use of all 24GB of that desktop (including
pushing a few hundred MBs to the small swap partition I have
configured), I noticed that my T61 is able to perform the exact same
tasks without swapping either.

Better yet: my T61's right hinge broke recently (for the third time:
there seems to be a weakness there), so for a few weeks I temporarily
used my T60 while waiting for new hinges to arrive.  Much to my
surprise, I didn't suffer from its limited RAM.  Stats show that the
swap is used significantly more, but it never got anywhere
near thrashing: the CPU was always kept busy with useful work.
[ All those machines use SSDs, of course.  ]

So, maybe there's a "good" reason why Apple still configures their
cheapest laptop with only 8GB of RAM: for "normal" work it's still
perfectly sufficient, despite all the best efforts of web site designers
out there.
[ But I would recommend against buying a desktop/laptop with 8GB now
  unless you can easily expand it later.  ]


        Stefan


PS: To give some context, my main tools are a mix of
XFCE/Emacs/Firefox/xterm/Git/LaTeX/GCC/OCaml/LibreOffice/Coq.
And I use the `i386` rather than `amd64` version of Debian on those
machines (tho with an `amd64` kernel).

Thread

good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Lionel Élie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> - 2023-03-21 00:20 +0100
  Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Charles Curley <charlescurley@charlescurley.com> - 2023-03-21 00:30 +0100
    Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Lionel Élie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> - 2023-03-21 01:40 +0100
      Memory use (was: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian) Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2023-03-21 03:10 +0100
        Re: Memory use (was: good freedom-respecting computer for running  Debian) Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2023-03-21 03:30 +0100
        Re: Memory use (was: good freedom-respecting computer for running  Debian) Jeremy Ardley <jeremy@ardley.org> - 2023-03-21 03:30 +0100
  Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2023-03-21 02:40 +0100
    Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Timothy M Butterworth <timothy.m.butterworth@gmail.com> - 2023-03-21 03:00 +0100
      Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Ramces Tampo-og Red <lists-16494@citadel.tokyo> - 2023-03-21 07:20 +0100
    Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Lionel Élie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> - 2023-03-21 09:10 +0100
      Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2023-03-21 14:40 +0100
  Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2023-03-21 10:20 +0100
    Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian "der.hans" <deb-user@LuftHans.com> - 2023-03-22 21:10 +0100
  Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us> - 2023-03-22 11:20 +0100
    Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Lionel Élie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> - 2023-03-22 20:10 +0100
      Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Teemu Likonen <tlikonen@iki.fi> - 2023-03-22 20:40 +0100
      Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Nate Bargmann <n0nb@n0nb.us> - 2023-03-23 00:10 +0100
        Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> - 2023-03-23 05:10 +0100
          Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian David <curmudgeon@telaman.net.au> - 2023-03-23 05:40 +0100
        Re: good freedom-respecting computer for running Debian Lionel Élie Mamane <lionel@mamane.lu> - 2023-03-23 11:40 +0100

csiph-web