Linux Memory (again)

Sun Nov 8 13:24:36 MST 2020

Inline here:

On Fri, Nov 6, 2020 at 6:28 PM Steve Litt via PLUG-discuss <
plug-discuss at lists.phxlinux.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 6 Nov 2020 07:48:40 -0700
> Michael Butash via PLUG-discuss <plug-discuss at 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 . 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
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