Ubuntu 7.04, you can be happy too

[Nothinman]

Apparently it's only a big deal when mentioned with Linux - but when I mention it with XP people say "why would you care? Free memory is wasted memory!".

No, it's not a big deal in either case. Unless of course you're designing a system with very specific memory limitations, then the amount of memory used on bootup and during normal operation will be very important.

 

[greylica]

Apparently it's only a big deal when mentioned with Linux - but when I mention it with XP people say "why would you care? Free memory is wasted memory!".

Microsoft people are saying this to everyone, But in fact, when you startup your system and it wastes 120 more seconds to stop the HDD light and be prepared to really work, people say :

My new system is so slow... (Generally I am hearing it from Vista )

The same thing applies to the crapware that generally comes with a new laptop. One friend of mine came here one day with a laptop with 512MB. At startup the laptop consumes 438MB of Ram, OK, start a Word processor and an spreadsheet.
WOOOOOOOUUUUU, so slowly....
I told him, go and buy more memory, buuuuttt....
A simple program, CCleaner (apropriated for Windows), or Jouni Vuorio Regcleaner Made the Magic that turns the Word processor a popping Window, startup with 197MB was sufficient to him, because have everything he need at startup, nothing more. If we don't need certain startup programs. Kill them all !!!

What is happening is simple. Vista haves a pre-caching of programs, if you have 16 Gigs of Ram, you can pre-cache an entire HDD. Wait 16 Minutes and all of your computer will run flawlessly of course.
For some users, it's half dozen for six.
The user have to wait the same way. He will not wait for the program, he will wait for a startup...
Course, it's better than XP in productivity, the programs will pop faster after pre-cached, but for the average user that don't know this, it's simple, Vista is slow at startup.

On a Linux, the entire software are good small pieces, if compared to XP and Vista, 123MB for Linux systems represents half of what will be used in XP to do the same thing for comparison.

 

[Nothinman]

The same thing applies to the crapware that generally comes with a new laptop.

Which is far from MS' fault, now that Dell's selling Ubuntu I'm sure they'll start loading it up with crap as soon as they can get their hands on some.

What is happening is simple. Vista haves a pre-caching of programs, if you have 16 Gigs of Ram, you can pre-cache an entire HDD. Wait 16 Minutes and all of your computer will run flawlessly of course.

Only if you have a miniscule hard drive, I can't remember the last time I saw a drive in the 16G range. But the I/O done by SuperFetch is low priority so it shouldn't have too much of an affect on the rest of the system while it's caching things.

On a Linux, the entire software are good small pieces, if compared to XP and Vista, 123MB for Linux systems represents half of what will be used in XP to do the same thing for comparison.

You consider FF and X small? Hell right now on my machine mutt is #3 in top memory usage with 120M RSS just by itself.

 

[greylica]

You consider FF and X small? Hell right now on my machine mutt is #3 in top memory usage with 120M RSS just by itself.

Yes, I consider small pieces of software. X binnary itself does not pass 10KB, but we have to count the Window Manager that we are using and their libraries. For me, KDE is lighter because of my configs, but for some, XFCE or Fluxbox is well swited for their needs. XFCE or Fluxbox is a third of a KDE in memory usage, and if you don't use a desktop wallpaper, or anything in the desktop, including clocks or docks. His consumption is about 12~27MB at startup dependig on the machine configs.
I Love the Visual and functionality of KDE, that's why I am using it. A friend of Mine using FluXBoX achieved a startup usage of memory of 63 MB, in 20 seconds, his system is up and running. My system is 30 seconds to be up and running with KDE. For me, it's very well.

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, I consider small pieces of software. X binnary itself does not pass 10KB,

The X server is probably the smallest part of X, you also have to count the driver for the video card and the libraries that contain the actual X protocol, etc. Hell libX11 itself is 1.1M on my machine. And as you say X is pretty useless by itself so you have to add in at least 1 WM. But my point was about memory usage and on my machine right now X is using 201M RSS.