[Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

Xacky · 2014-01-18 19:16:45

Dear Arch-users,

I recently bought an older laptop with 1 GB ram on it. First I tried Linux Mint combined with xfce 4.8/(10?). It did run fine butt I prefer Arch over Mint so I went back to my old love.

Problem is it uses a lot of memory a lot more than mint and I can't find out were the problem is.

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           941        864         76          7          3         96
-/+ buffers/cache:        764        176
Swap:            0          0          0

I did some research on it but I couldn't find any really solutions for my problem, anyone with the same experience? Or someone with a good pointer or better Google-search?

-Edit-
Forget to mention I have an Nvidia vga with the Nvidia-304xx drivers installed. This card uses shared memory. (The problem might be there?). Its an GeForce Go 6150

-Edit 2-
I just installed zramswap which brought some relief.

Mem:           941        846         95          9          3        149
-/+ buffers/cache:        693        248
Swap:          188        166         21

Ps. Englisch is my third language (After, Dutch, German) so please don't flame me for my grammar errors.

Last edited by Xacky (2014-01-18 20:05:37)

karol · 2014-01-18 19:32:08

Use e.g. htop to see which application uses the most (or surprising much) memory.
You can switch to nouveau to see if it significantly reduces memory consumption.

cjazz · 2014-01-18 19:43:50

Xacky wrote:

... please don't flame me for my grammar errors.

I won't if you won't :0

That's a lot of memory use. I wonder if there's more than one issue at work here. I don't know if you're aware of the issue with cairo. It seems that nvidia drivers use extra memory when cairo is used with gl enabled.

There are two workarounds that I know if. One is to recompile cairo without gl enabled, probably using ABS. The other, which I've opted for, is to use one of the appropriate versions of cairo in AUR, such as cairo-nogl or cairo-small. This has saved me more than 100 mb memory. Hope this helps a little.

Xacky · 2014-01-18 19:51:14

karol wrote:

Use e.g. htop to see which application uses the most (or surprising much) memory.
You can switch to nouveau to see if it significantly reduces memory consumption.

It worked surprisingly well

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           941        376        564          3         17        206
-/+ buffers/cache:        152        788
Swap:          188          0        188

With Chrome running this thread

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           941        595        345          7         18        247
-/+ buffers/cache:        330        611
Swap:          188          0        188

Should I mark this topic as solved? Its an solution for my problem but not sure if I can say if its solved.

Xacky · 2014-01-18 19:54:52

cjazz wrote:

Xacky wrote:
... please don't flame me for my grammar errors.
I won't if you won't :0
That's a lot of memory use. I wonder if there's more than one issue at work here. I don't know if you're aware of the issue with cairo. It seems that nvidia drivers use extra memory when cairo is used with gl enabled.
There are two workarounds that I know if. One is to recompile cairo without gl enabled, probably using ABS. The other, which I've opted for, is to use one of the appropriate versions of cairo in AUR, such as cairo-nogl or cairo-small. This has saved me more than 100 mb memory. Hope this helps a little.

I won't ,

Thnx for your quick en very well detailed respond. I will try this when I really need the closed source drivers and hope this answer will help a frustrated Googleling user who will find this topic . For now I will stay on the nouveau drivers.

karol · 2014-01-18 20:01:54

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162702 for the cairo issue.

Xacky · 2014-01-18 20:05:13

karol wrote:

See https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=162702 for the cairo issue.

Thnx for the link,

I will mark this thread as solved now. Other users with the same problem can easily solve the problem now . I might try this solution also just because it can.

I found an other solution that works with the closed source drivers that was already pointed above me. But for the google users and Arch-forum search users a short summery.

Step 1) Download the AUR-package cairo-nvidia

Step 2) Change the PGKBUILD en delete the following two lines

 
--enable-gl \
--enable-egl \

This will solve your problem.

Last edited by Xacky (2014-01-27 14:10:40)

Arch Linux

#1 2014-01-18 19:16:45

[Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#2 2014-01-18 19:32:08

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#3 2014-01-18 19:43:50

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#4 2014-01-18 19:51:14

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#5 2014-01-18 19:54:52

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#6 2014-01-18 20:01:54

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

#7 2014-01-18 20:05:13

Re: [Solved]High memory usage XFCE 4.10 (vs Linux mint)

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