Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

ElderSnake · 2012-06-02 00:20:36

Hi,

I'm very curious if anyone here has noticed the memory usage of Chrome/Chromium on Arch. I ask because right now I'm using an ASUS eeePC netbook with only 1GB (non expandable) RAM, which after the GPU takes its share, leaves the system with about 735mb of ram for the OS to use. I'm using XFCE 4.10.

Firefox is managable and with a few tabs open only pushes my ram up to about 430MB. Chrome/Chromium, however, pushes my RAM to over 600MB with the same tabs (just a few) and my system starts swapping. And let me tell you that's not fun.

However here's what I don't understand. I've tried a few other distros the last few days on this machine, say Kubuntu, a few Debian distros like pure Debian Testing and SolusOS and recently even tried Fedora 17 and using Chrome/Chromium on those distros is absolutely no problem...?
I use Google sync so the addons and everything are completely the same and yet it never seems to go over 500MB on those other distros.

Is there any possible reason for this?

EDIT: All OS' are 32bit.

Last edited by ElderSnake (2012-06-02 00:23:46)

Jristz · 2012-06-02 00:24:31

Chrome/chromium use sanboxing
in other word: all is a process independant
two tabs is like open 2 chromiums instances, same for extensions
this (for me knowledge) explain the hight Ram usage

I personally recomend chrome in win and for linux if you only use a few tabs or have much ram

ElderSnake · 2012-06-02 00:28:00

I understand, it's just that it seems strange on this same machine Chrome/Chromium use less memory in the other distros and is very usable (moreso than Firefox). On my Arch install using XFCE and trying to run as light as possible and yet somehow the browser is using crazy memory.

gedgon · 2012-06-02 11:44:45

ElderSnake wrote:

I understand, it's just that it seems strange on this same machine Chrome/Chromium use less memory in the other distros and is very usable (moreso than Firefox). On my Arch install using XFCE and trying to run as light as possible and yet somehow the browser is using crazy memory.

Interesting. Indeed, there is a difference. In this case (sample pages from top 25 on fresh Google Chrome profiles), about 10% (overall). Especially, the main process is significantly bigger.

thof · 2012-06-02 12:18:06

There are some tweaks to reduce memory usage https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ch … mory_Usage but still Chromium seems to be heaviest browser. As Jristz said, every single tab is a separate process, so you have more control, but at the same time these separated processes need more memory.

I hardly every have open less than 20 tabs, and Chromium kills my system. Some time ago I tried even compare three major browser (Opera, Firefox, Chromium). I just opened on them about 20 the same tabs with sites that I usually visit (e.g. Wikipedia, Archwiki, Stackoverflow, news, Google Reader, Youtube without Flash) and took the difference of memory usage (free -m). As a result Opera needed about 160, Firefox about 300, and Chromium about 600 MB RAM (I disabled addons/extensions except Adblock). As you see memory usage doubled on each subsequent browser.

gedgon · 2012-06-02 12:27:30

thof wrote:

There are some tweaks to reduce memory usage https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ch … mory_Usage but still Chromium seems to be heaviest browser.

It's not the main OP issue, but Chrome/Chromium in Arch vs Chrome/Chromium in XXX distro memory usage.

ElderSnake · 2012-06-03 00:28:44

gedgon wrote:

ElderSnake wrote:
I understand, it's just that it seems strange on this same machine Chrome/Chromium use less memory in the other distros and is very usable (moreso than Firefox). On my Arch install using XFCE and trying to run as light as possible and yet somehow the browser is using crazy memory.
Interesting. Indeed, there is a difference. In this case (sample pages from top 25 on fresh Google Chrome profiles), about 10% (overall). Especially, the main process is significantly bigger.
http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/2027/chromeci.th.png

Wow well thankyou, I'm glad I dont seem crazy

That is interesting...I can't think of any reason why it would be like this though. Especially as the Google Chrome build is straight from Google themselves and no different to the one that is installed on Ubuntu and others...so its not like there could be some compile option making a difference or anything. Weird.

Last edited by ElderSnake (2012-06-03 00:29:22)

Arch Linux

#1 2012-06-02 00:20:36

Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#2 2012-06-02 00:24:31

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#3 2012-06-02 00:28:00

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#4 2012-06-02 11:44:45

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#5 2012-06-02 12:18:06

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#6 2012-06-02 12:27:30

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

#7 2012-06-03 00:28:44

Re: Google Chrome/Chromium memory usage on Arch?

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