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bender02

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 1,328

Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

I was curious how much memory do "lightweight" window managers consume [after someone boasting about how many SLOC were added to awesome after forking dwm], so I did some rough comparison. WMs are sorted by VSZ, and I threw in some more programs to compare.

    VSZ     SZ   RSZ CMD
 148008  37002 10012 /usr/bin/awesome
  88084  22021 10788 /usr/bin/openbox
  68620  17155  6708 /usr/bin/fluxbox
  39088   9772  4268 /home/me/.xmonad/xmonad-x86_64-linux
  38140   9535  3420 /usr/bin/xmonad
  36036   9009  1868 /usr/bin/ratpoison
  29200   7300  1536 /usr/bin/dwm
  25712   6428  1472 /usr/bin/evilwm

  19804   4951  1304 /usr/bin/dzen2
  31868   7967  2556 /usr/bin/xbindkeys
  31016   7754  3048 /bin/zsh
  19468   4867  2152 /bin/bash
    256     64   100 /bin/dash
  63692  15923  6704 /usr/bin/urxvt
  63460  15865  8636 /usr/bin/xterm
 490324 122581 83952 /usr/bin/firefox
 276132  69033 63760 /usr/lib/opera/9.61/opera

Some explanations: I have 64 bit system (so the numbers are probably a bit bigger than on i686).
The lines were generated by: ps -o vsz,sz,rsz,cmd -C <name>
All wms were with the default configuration (except the fully configured xmonad on line 4), and they were measured right after they were started, with one urxvt window open.

From ps manpage:
VSZ = virtual memory size of the process in KiB (1024-byte units)
SZ = size in physical pages of the core image of the process. This includes text, data, and stack space
RSZ = resident set size, the non-swapped physical memory that a task has used (in kiloBytes)
I'm pretty confused by the manpage saying that it's in KiB, because to me it looks like the output is in bytes.

As far as I understand, VSZ is the total size, including the libraries that are used by the process (some of which might be shared with some other processes). This is the reason why it's generally hard to get a reasonable comparison of memory consumption in linux.

Some of these WM are commonly used with an extra panel program or something similar; this is not reflected by the above table.

I know that on the today's common machines all these WMs are really small and fast, but what was striking for me that awesome (apart from the really annoying name that is impossible to reasonably google for) is so much bigger that most of the other ones.

Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

Add haskell for xmonad. (it's separate right?)

Very interesting though, didn't think awesome would take so much.

mentallaxative

Member

From: Australia

Registered: 2008-07-14

Posts: 134

Website

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

I've heard about awesome's apparent bloatedness--someone, somewhere was protesting about it. I shouldn't pull words out of thin air, but that's my impression of it. It's a rather full-featured tiling window manager compared to its brothers. It would be interesting to see how wmii fares, too.

The numbers for Firefox look rather alarming in comparison with Opera's, but we shouldn't make too much of arbitrary figures anyway.

*waves a dwm flag*

bender02

Member

From: UK

Registered: 2007-02-04

Posts: 1,328

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

Add haskell for xmonad. (it's separate right?)

Hm? haskell is needed to compile xmonad, but it's by no means necessary to run xmonad...

heleos

Member

From: Maine, USA

Registered: 2007-04-24

Posts: 678

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

I've heard about awesome's apparent bloatedness--someone, somewhere was protesting about it. I shouldn't pull words out of thin air, but that's my impression of it. It's a rather full-featured tiling window manager compared to its brothers. It would be interesting to see how wmii fares, too.

The numbers for Firefox look rather alarming in comparison with Opera's, but we shouldn't make too much of arbitrary figures anyway.

*waves a dwm flag*

The only thing I would consider bloat would be the newly added composite features. Other things (tagging/systray/etc) can be turned off or not used

edit: cant spell

Last edited by heleos (2008-10-31 17:31:00)

Procyon

Member

Registered: 2008-05-07

Posts: 1,819

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

Must have had CL in mind. That's quite impressive of xmonad/haskell then, I didn't think it was like that. Makes me want to try it again.

skottish

Forum Fellow

From: Here

Registered: 2006-06-16

Posts: 7,942

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

This system (E17) has been up for a while. I have some things open, but I don't know if that matters. Anyway:

VSZ    SZ   RSZ CMD
384568 96142 24540 enlightenment
99244  24811 1336  /usr/sbin/entranced

pauldonnelly

Member

Registered: 2006-06-19

Posts: 776

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

   VSZ    SZ   RSZ CMD
 17416  4354 11000 stumpwm

In CLISP.

Shapeshifter

Member

Registered: 2008-03-11

Posts: 230

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

compiz fusion with emerald, though I can hardly believe those numbers are right. I must have missed something. That's what they give me though. But I must say it starts up really quick and it doesn't include any sorts of bars, panels or other things, so it might as well be reasonable. It's just a window manager after all...

   VSZ    SZ   RSZ CMD
 15232  3808 11012 compiz
 21472  5368 12620 emerald
--------------------------------
 36704  9176 23632 TOTAL

Last edited by Shapeshifter (2008-10-31 20:58:05)

fuscia

Member

Registered: 2008-04-21

Posts: 398

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

Very interesting though, didn't think awesome would take so much.

well, awesome picked up where dwm left off (which, i guess, explains why dwm stopped when it did).

haxit

Member

From: /home/haxit

Registered: 2008-03-04

Posts: 1,247

Website

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

haxit  <  ps -o vsz,sz,rsz,cmd -C openbox
   VSZ    SZ   RSZ CMD
10976  2744  5756 /usr/bin/openbox

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Vi veri universum vivus vici.

cardinals_fan

Member

From: /dev/null

Registered: 2008-02-03

Posts: 248

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

Very interesting though, didn't think awesome would take so much.

well, awesome picked up where dwm left off (which, i guess, explains why dwm stopped when it did).

Brilliant post.

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Segmentation fault (core dumped)

shazeal

Member

From: New Zealand

Registered: 2007-06-05

Posts: 341

Re: Comparison of memory consumption of "small" WMs

compiz fusion with emerald, though I can hardly believe those numbers are right. I must have missed something. That's what they give me though. But I must say it starts up really quick and it doesn't include any sorts of bars, panels or other things, so it might as well be reasonable. It's just a window manager after all...

   VSZ    SZ   RSZ CMD
 15232  3808 11012 compiz
 21472  5368 12620 emerald
--------------------------------
 36704  9176 23632 TOTAL

I get about the same, Im just guessing but it could be because compiz uses vram instead of system ram for most of its extra eyecandy?