Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

erik9631 · 2024-01-25 14:35:35

Hello.

I switched to Arch Linux because of how lightweight and fast it is and I have been very satisfied with it after I have set it up, on my laptop.

I will eventually want to do a full switch to Arch Linux as my main desktop OS.
I have been using Windows till now.

Either ways I have this obsession that I want the system to use as little RAM as possible (Don't ask me why, it is not rational, but it is quite satisfying to see low numbers) and I managed to get it to 280MB without GUI and ~600MB with a kited out Hyprland GUI with Waybar along with some tray apps like bluetooth and network and all the basic stuff you would expect on a laptop which is absolutely mindblowing compared to my Windows system.

Either ways I know that the minimum requirements for the original Windows XP system was 64MB of ram. It could run, not well but it could.
Compared to what I have that is more than ~9 times less (Counting in the GUI usage as well).

Windows XP Somehow managed to put down the usage all the way to 64MB with a full fledged GUI as well as basic system apps and network connectivity.

I don't see much space to optimize here. This is the usage of the top services:

...
...
...
549 dhcpcd dhcpcd 0.0 1MiB
557 dhcpcd dhcpcd 0.0 1MiB
628 dhcpcd dhcpcd 0.0 1MiB
548 root dhcpcd 0.0 2MiB
585 erik dbus-broker 0.0 2MiB
416 dbus dbus-broker 0.0 3MiB
568 erik (sd-pam) 0.0 3MiB
579 erik dbus-broker-lau 0.0 3MiB
864 erik awk 0.0 3MiB
577 erik bash 0.0 4MiB
863 erik ps 0.0 4MiB
415 dbus dbus-broker-lau 0.0 4MiB
436 root iwd 0.0 5MiB
547 dhcpcd dhcpcd 0.0 5MiB
515 root login 0.0 5MiB
418 root bluetoothd 0.0 5MiB
857 root systemd-userwor 0.0 6MiB
855 root systemd-userwor 0.0 6MiB
856 root systemd-userwor 0.0 6MiB
276 root systemd-userdbd 0.0 6MiB
589 rtkit rtkit-daemon 0.0 7MiB
419 root systemd-logind 0.0 8MiB
288 root systemd-udevd 0.0 10MiB
392 systemd+ systemd-timesyn 0.0 10MiB
565 erik systemd 0.0 12MiB
576 erik pipewire-pulse 0.0 12MiB
1 root systemd 0.0 12MiB
596 polkitd polkitd 0.1 19MiB
241 root systemd-journal 0.1 22MiB
574 erik pipewire 0.1 26MiB
417 root NetworkManager 0.2 32MiB
575 erik wireplumber 0.2 36MiB

Most used up by network manager and wire plumber which franky I consider mandatory services.

Without GUI this is still like 5 times more than what XP can do WITH GUI.

How did they do that? Is there a way for me to achieve this?
I also don't want to give up the GUI so if there is anything I want to optimize then it is the system processes.

Last edited by erik9631 (2024-01-25 14:38:39)

d.ALT · 2024-01-25 14:45:59

erik9631 wrote:

minimum requirements for the original Windows XP system was 64MB of ram. It could run, not well but it could

This should prefectly fits your needs

seth · 2024-01-25 15:22:34

network manager and wire plumber which franky I consider mandatory services

LOL
Also it should be possible to run chromium w/ 50+ tabs in 64MB or less, anything else is for losers.
And it's 2024, som compositing is a must.

You likely need more than 64MB to address your hardware, the way to face the system requirements of 2001 is to run a system from 2001.

Also if you've NM and iwd and multiple instances of dhcpcd running in parallel, you've quite frankly other issues.

Head_on_a_Stick · 2024-01-25 15:25:57

In respect of current operating systems, the Arch live ISO image won't even boot for me under QEMU unless it has 1GiB of RAM assigned.

Alpine Linux can manage with 256MiB and OpenBSD 7.4 will boot the ramdisk kernel (installer) with only 32MiB available. Perhaps try those instead?

Also:

erik9631 wrote:

Most used up by network manager and wire plumber which franky I consider mandatory services

I consider NetworkManager and WirePlumber to be pure bloat. I don't use either. Have you tried IWD (with static addresses) & pure ALSA?

ewaller · 2024-01-25 15:36:21

Almost off topic, you might take a look at https://weeraman.com/building-a-tiny-li … 07579ae79d

Build a working Linux system with just a kennel, a shell and Busybox in 17MB that runs in QEMU. Practical, no. Great leaning experience, yes.

erik9631 · 2024-01-25 17:51:34

Also if you've NM and iwd and multiple instances of dhcpcd running in parallel, you've quite frankly other issues

It is possible to configure network manager to use dhcpcd and iwd as a backend and it will manage these services on its own which is why you are seeing this in the log.
As to why:

I consider NetworkManager and WirePlumber to be pure bloat. I don't use either. Have you tried IWD (with static addresses) & pure ALSA?

I agree and yes I have.
As a matter of fact i originally started with these services and I considered them enough.

The reason why I use this bloat is for GUI.

I want have a system tray icon for the network (or frankly I would accept any simple GUI for managing wifi connections) and NM has an applet that I can use in the waybar.

Same goes for wireplumber. Also need an applet.

If you have better suggestions i am open to them.

I was thinking of also just throwing all of this away and using purely console but I would like this purely for convenience

I was also thinking of writing something on my own since i couldn't find any light weight gui app but I don't have that kind of time right now

Arch Linux

#1 2024-01-25 14:35:35

Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

#2 2024-01-25 14:45:59

Re: Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

#3 2024-01-25 15:22:34

Re: Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

#4 2024-01-25 15:25:57

Re: Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

#5 2024-01-25 15:36:21

Re: Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

#6 2024-01-25 17:51:34

Re: Decreasing the ram usage bellow 64MB?

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