[Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

saad · 2011-07-21 17:53:56

HI,
I've been using a 32bits Arch system for 5 years now. but recently I wanted to try a 64bits system, I don't know if I did something wrong, but now I often have memory leak problems. I have a Core 2 Duo 2.4 GHz laptop with 2GB of RAM, and the said problems usually occur when I have firefox with some 30 tabs running along with Eclipse. for the record I'm using WMFS window manager and when this problem happens the system becomes really slow and I can see that all my RAM is being used.
Now my question is, did I do something wrong ? or would it be better to revert to a 32bits system?

PS : Sorry for my bad english

Last edited by saad (2011-07-22 22:39:29)

karol · 2011-07-21 18:01:12

You can check if it's not e.g. cpu using htop.
Please post the output of 'free -m' from the moment when you're experiencing system slowness.

Both firefox w/ 30 tabs and eclipse can put a strain on your system.

saad · 2011-07-21 18:34:39

thanks for you answer karol.
I always use htop to check what is the cause of the problem, it's usually firefox-bin or plugin-container using my RAM and CPU. I'm using AdBlock plus but it doesn't help much.

here's the output of 'free -m'

                    total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          2010       1935         74          0          0         73
-/+ buffers/cache:       1862        148
Swap:         1997        191       1806

I recall that when using 32 bits Arch I was able to run virtualbox along with firefox and eclipse without real problems

karol · 2011-07-21 18:36:47

OK, so you're really out of RAM and already swapping.
I think Flash (plugin-container) may be the culprit here. Are you watching a lot of flash content in those tabs?

saad · 2011-07-21 19:24:18

to reproduce the problem righ now, I just needed to open several tabs of megavideo and click play. flash is definitely the culprit. I have read alot of complains about flash in the forums but it wasn't of any help. I think I will just revert to 32 bits, the overall performance was more stable. I may try 64bits again if I ever get a new machine. thanks again for you answers karol.

karol · 2011-07-21 19:28:28

You can use http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=29703 to see the memory usage for each app to see how does it all work on 32-bits.
On my computer it currently shows (among other apps)

...
  4.7 MiB + 652.0 KiB =   5.4 MiB    bash (4)
  5.4 MiB + 286.5 KiB =   5.7 MiB    plugin-container
...

so flash uses only a bit more RAM than my bash shell instances (but I'm not watching anything atm). Using less tabs with flash (or generally multimedia) content will surely help reduce the memory usage.

Just curious: what kind of flash have you installed (from the official repos, AUR etc.)?
Maybe flash for 64-bit gets better https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=122532 someday.

Last edited by karol (2011-07-21 19:30:34)

lagagnon · 2011-07-21 21:19:00

saad: if you need to have 30+ tabs open in any browser you will have system resource concerns now matter what your hardware is. Flash items in many of those tab instances will consume CPU and memory drastically even if you're not looking at them. You would be better served to make more judicious use of bookmarks and/or extensions such as "New Tab JumpStart" or "Tracer" as well as FlashBlock.

Eclipse is also known to be a memory hog. I guess if you do however, need all that stuff loaded at once you will have to go to 4GB and 64bit Arch.

lesto · 2011-07-21 22:27:13

noscript helps a lot versus flash advertisement

saad · 2011-07-21 23:09:07

@karol : I'm using flash plugin from the multilib repo. I will give Flash 11 a shot to see if does any better. thanks a lot!
@lagagnon : I guess I have bad habits when surfing internet. I'll take a look at the extensions you mentioned and see what I can do. thanks!

.:B:. · 2011-07-22 06:06:34

I just put 64 bit on my new laptop (4 GB RAM), and with an identical setup (same X resolution, same programs launched at startup) it easily consumes 50-100% more RAM. Just on startup. So I'd stick with 32 bit on 2 GB RAM. You don't really need it.

JackH79 · 2011-07-22 06:14:43

Can't really say the same. Got full KDE 64 bit running on an old MacBook with 2 gigs of RAM. No troubles so far (but I agree, you don't really need it).

Last edited by JackH79 (2011-07-22 06:15:30)

examon · 2011-07-22 12:20:08

I was running 64bit Arch and 32bit Arch on the same laptop (ThinkPad x201i, intel i3, 2GB RAM) and I can say... I like more 32bit... 64bit was just fine, it was was, normally about 500MB RAM usage. I switched to 32bit and I like it more. RAM usage is ~300MB avarage, and whole system feels somehow faster, but It's maybe only my feeling ;-) (I'm using almost exclusively console aplications)

saad · 2011-07-22 22:26:56

I guess 32bits is better for my actual hardware and needs. Thank you all for your help

Arch Linux

#1 2011-07-21 17:53:56

[Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#2 2011-07-21 18:01:12

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#3 2011-07-21 18:34:39

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#4 2011-07-21 18:36:47

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#5 2011-07-21 19:24:18

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#6 2011-07-21 19:28:28

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#7 2011-07-21 21:19:00

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#8 2011-07-21 22:27:13

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#9 2011-07-21 23:09:07

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#10 2011-07-22 06:06:34

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#11 2011-07-22 06:14:43

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#12 2011-07-22 12:20:08

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

#13 2011-07-22 22:26:56

Re: [Solved] 64 bits system on a laptop with 2 GB of RAM, should it work ?

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