Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

ravisghosh · 2007-02-04 07:50:55

Even with no apps running, xfce4-taskmanager shows the memory usage bar at about 75%. I do not feel things to be petty slow, but changing tabs in opera is not instanttaneous. Could anybody suggest something to find out the culprit and fix it.

Also, is there any keyboard shortcut to kill apps in xfce4-taskmanager. Now, what I have to do is right click on the app and then select kill.

Last edited by ravisghosh (2007-02-09 05:32:29)

ravisghosh · 2007-02-07 04:24:55

no luck yet...

con · 2007-02-07 22:04:30

Yea...I also noticed this...try free -m on the commandline or gkrellm to see how much mem is 'really' in use, xfce probably calculates the mem usage differently...

If I remember correctly the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+Esc and that starts xkill, just click on the window you want to 'die'

ravisghosh · 2007-02-09 05:31:25

xkill does kill the window but cannot kill any process running in background. However, htop may provide a solution.

as far as the memory issue is concerned, here are some observations (my total ram is 256 mb).

memory usage after logging in in console: 31 mb.
memory usage after starting xfce4 (startxfce4) with just panel, desktop, menu, clock, xfce4-notes rnning: 95 mb
memory usage after running 1-2 apps say opera: 225 mb plus some cache
memory usage after closing all the apps and just run xfce4 with panel, desktop, menu, clock, xfce4-notes: 195 mb (strange since i have closed all the apps).

Another strange finding: Where "free -m" command shows the memory usage as 238 mb, "top" command shows it 244 mb, and "htop" command shows it 108 mb. What can be the reason for such a great difference between free -m/top and htop?

Can anybody help me out with this memory hell. please..

Snowman · 2007-02-09 06:47:21

I think the slow tab switch is specific to opera.

The strange memory usage is probably due to memory cache or because some libraries were not loaded yet in memory when you check the memory usage after starting your X session. After quitting your apps, they (or their libs) probably remains in memory. If you would restart your apps, they'll start faster. Here free, top and htop gives the same memory usage. Maybe you read the wrong field or they interpret memory usage differently.

EDIT: When you run top, what apps use the most memory?

Arch Linux

#1 2007-02-04 07:50:55

Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

#2 2007-02-07 04:24:55

Re: Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

#3 2007-02-07 22:04:30

Re: Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

#4 2007-02-09 05:31:25

Re: Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

#5 2007-02-09 06:47:21

Re: Memory Efficiency in Xfce4

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