Yeah, It isn’t just on linux where some of these apps have issues. OS X also sees a lot of the same issues (I never maintain more than 4 open tabs of Chrome and I don’t bother with Firefox as it’s an accessibility nightmare under VoiceOver screen reader). About the only DM’s in linux where the ORCA screen reader and braille facilities work best are GTK based ones (like Gnome, FVWM, and some others) and won’t even work at all in KDE without significant modifications to the KDE environment (and even then, with only partial accessibility).
The reason I bring up the accessibility issue is that these memory hogs can have detrimental effects on screen reader and braille display performance Most times on a linux system, I will simply just use either ORCA for the DM or go to Emacsspeak for console mode and use Lynx (or one of its variants) for web browsing. Much smaller footprint. As for office apps, I haven’t found anything out there that isn’t a memory hog in one way or another. So, I do what I can to minimize those issues. About the only thing I have been unable to do is have the screen reader read remotely fed apps (forwarded X display types) They appear only as a graphic interface with no content inside of them. Considering the versatility of Linux and most Linux based apps, this is a glaring issue that seriously needs to be resolved.
Btw, as far as memory issues goes, I really wish we could go back to the days of programming when everything had to be tight to fit into a small ram footprint. Sure, those programs were a little less user friendly, but they didn’t have nearly the bugs or the bloat of current apps.
Just my 2 cents worth.
-Eric
From the Central Offices of the Technomage Guild, Memory allocation and configuration Dept.
> On Nov 8, 2020, at 1:24 PM, Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:
>
> Inline here:
>
> On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 6:28 PM Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org <mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:
> On Fri, 6 Nov 2020 07:48:40 -0700
> Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org <mailto:plug-discuss@lists.phxlinux.org>> wrote:
>
> Chrome/Chromium and Firefox are absolute pigs. I finally tamed Firefox
> ty setting it to drop all cache and other stuff upon exit, and then I
> shut down all instances of Firefox every day.
>
> They all are pigs I find. Tried Brave, Chrome, Chromium, and keep ending up back at firefox as a lesser of evils. Chrome is the new IE, so now I *need* it occasionally for plugins. I've been using tab suspenders across each, doesn't help much.
>
> My problem is I have to keep different profiles for different companies I work with, usually no less than 4-6 at a time, 2 at least for my personal gsuite and work. Mostly I do so for M$ O365/Teams, as they can't figure out how to make it work across organizations or seemingly comprehend why anyone would. Hint: Consultants that work for 5-10 orgs at a time. Each profile just ends up hoarding ram, which ends up being 30-40gb at times on my system.
>
> I don't know how many VMs you run, but those eat up memory.
>
> I have a mainstream Win10 build with visio and other windoze-y crap I need, 8gb of ram, and keep a few win10 ameliorated editions for clients to minimize footprint with 4gb. Usually only 2 windoze, 1 if I can. Occasionally a few other 2-4gb ram linux systems, but typically ~20gb for vbox and my vms. It's where all the other memory goes I have a hard time with, which I really can't identify.
>
> What the heck kind of editor requires 3-4GB RAM? That sounds crazy to
> me. Why do you have a few dozen files open simultaneously?
>
> Fine questions really, this tends to be where I'm bit odd. I've found whether using Pluma, Gedit, or even qqnotepad, they all tend to get a bit crazy with a lot of tabs. I presume things like undo memory, things like that are adding up, but I'm still like geez, really?
>
> Why so many? I mostly do network and security consulting, with config files from existing devices, resulting operational output extracted in text, across multiple orgs at a time. Not to mention configuration changes I'm making for template deployment off those, so it gets a bit crazy flipping between dozens of configs at a time.
>
> If I could find better ways to manage some of this, it would be nice, but seems everything just dumps this sort of thing into memory hoarding.
>
> Libreoffice is kind of a pig. Is there something else you can use? And
> why a dozen or two simultaneous files open? This sounds like a workflow
> nightmare. Do you mean one Libreoffice instance with 24 files open, or
> a bunch of separate Libreoffices in VMs. If the latter, yeah, that's
> going to burn a lot of RAM, even more than one instance with 24
> documents.
>
> I often blame Libreoffice, only to kill it with like 20 spreadsheets open, and 30 write files and find it was using (only) around 4gb of ram. I take notes a lot in libre because it's restore on crash has proven pretty flawless vs., well anything else. I mostly prefer pluma for text input and notes, but no good restore. Tried qqnotepad that had a restore function, it was highly dysfunctional.
>
> Ohhhh, KDE. I call that Krash, Delay, Expand. See
> http://troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm <http://troubleshooters.com/lpm/201202/201202.htm> . I use OpenBox, which
> is a low-RAM, just-the-facts window manager. On every machine I ever
> used KDE, performance was bad and on lower RAM machines, things ground
> to a halt.
>
> Gnome and KDE are luxuries for folks with lightning fast processors and
> huge quantities of RAM, who want their computers to perform like a 2015
> computer with 4GB RAM.
>
> Yes KDE is a pain, but both pretty and functional. I like it, though it friggin' hates me. Tried Mate/Cinnamon, i3, xfce, others randomly, just never cared for most.
>
> My work and life on a single pc blend probably too much, but when I still can't seem to work functionally with 64-128gb of ram that simply no one else uses but me, I'm like wtf is wrong with my setup.
>
> I'm running a 2014 computer:
> * AMD A6-6400K APU with Radeon(tm) HD Graphics (dual core)
> - 3.1Ghz dualcore
> * 16GB RAM
> * Openbox with dmenu and UMENU2
>
> With no browsers open, this machine is is snappy as hell. With firefox
> set to dump cache upon exit, as long as I do reasonable housekeeping on
> tabs, and prophylactically close all firefox instances at least once a
> day, everything's pretty good.
>
> That being said, this is a 2014 machine, so I'm soon buying a 3.6 Ghz 6
> core (65 watt) with 64GB RAM. This will give me more latitude in
> running Chromium, which I need for Jitsi, and allow me less stringent
> housekeeping in Firefox.
>
> Perhaps this is just the price for working as I do. I also tend to keep things open to work perpetually as who needs work/life balance, so purging things would likely help.
>
> Trying to work as I do under windoze as a test, it just couldn't hang. Perhaps I expect too much of linux, but it's far more capable at least, though when it gets wonky, it does so fast.
>
> Thanks for the input here, I do appreciate it, as perhaps as said I am simply going about things a wrong way, thus the ask.
>
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Autumn 2020 featured book: Thriving in Tough Times
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive <http://www.troubleshooters.com/thrive>
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