Hedon James Posted April 19, 2016 Share Posted April 19, 2016 (edited) I love the diversity of the Linux ecosystem. I'm somewhat amazed at the various selections of distros, from the "major" players at the top of their respective "derivative chains", i.e.: Debian, Fedora/Red Hat, SUSE/OpenSUSE, Arch, Gentoo, Ubuntu (itself a derivative of Debian), Mint (itself a derivative of Ubuntu), etc...; to the hundreds of smaller distros that are even more specialized. As if that isn't enough variety, we haven't even discussed desktop environments yet: Unity, Gnome, Cinnamon, Mate, LXDE, LXQT, KDE, XFCE, Enlightenment, Budgie. And then there are the window managers which aren't truly desktop environments, but can be if one prefers the minimalist environment: Openbox, Fluxbox, IceWM, WindowMaker, PekWM, JWM, and others that are moreso tiled terminal managers for the truly hardcore survivalist. All running on a Linux kernel (or even a BSD, or Minix, or HURD if you truly want it). With all of these choices, there really IS a perfect choice for everyone, even though no one agrees on what that is, LOL! I enjoy Raymacs posts about his Virtualbox adventures with different distros and it got me thinking about my own Linux journey. I started circa 2009 with Ubuntu 9.10 and jumped around a bit with Fedora, OpenSUSE, Debian, Mint, PCLOS and some "slimmer" distros like D*** Small Linux, Tiny Core, and Slitaz. The slimmers were interesting (still are!), but I gravitated toward full-fledged desktop environments (DE) for "getting stuff done". With that said, despite my jumping around in the beginning, I think I found "my distro" quicker than most. Ubuntu was the perfect candidate for me...a large user-base where my Windows trouble-shooting skills weren't completely invalidated and an interface (Gnome2) that just made PERFECT sense with its layout, categories, etc... But while most folks were distro hoppers, I found I was moreso a desktop environment (DE) hopper, and often installed different DEs on my Ubuntu distro and tinkered with them for awhile. I even had an older (repurposed?!) dedicated machine that was used solely for the purpose of trying things out with NO FEAR whatsoever! I discovered VirtualBox very soon thereafter and decided to keep close tabs on other distros and DEs, just to make sure I had made the best choice for myself. And everything seemed to confirm that until Ubuntu 11.04...UNITY! When that happened, I HATED IT, and refused to upgrade. But I continued to tinker with the VM and something unexpected happened...it started to make sense...and the more I used it, the more I liked it! While I hated the way Canonical shoved it down my throat, I grew to like it. I can't help but wonder if they would've retained more of their userbase if they had introduced the concept for folks to try it out, and then let the uptake occur more naturally, at a slower pace. (But that's another discussion for a different thread.) While it's probably safe to say that Ubuntu is the most popular linux distro, I think it's equally safe to say that it's definitely in the minority on this forum! But things are changing again...probably moreso with me than with Ubuntu. I still like Ubuntu. But even if I didn't, I'm the de-facto computer guy in my family, so I need to keep in mind the "lowest common denominator" of my tech support recipients. Life is just easier for me this way. In that vein, Ubuntu's Unity just keeps getting more and more bloated. While my workhorse has plenty of horsepower and doesn't really fuss too much, this conflicts with my core philosophy of "cpu cycles are for getting stuff done, not for idling a pretty desktop." And it doesn't run very well on older resource-challenged machines...late XP-era, Vista-era, and early Win7-era machines with dual-core processors and 2GB-4GB RAM. I notice a huge difference between how these machines handle Unity and how my 6-core 32GB workhorse handles it. So I've been revisiting my DE selection criteria and developing my own lightweight hybrid DE that looks and acts like Unity (my preference), with options for other desktop layouts (other folks' preference), that runs well on these XP/Vista/Win7 era machines. Added bonus...it SCREAMS on my workhorse! All this background has brought me to this point...after using so many different DEs on so many different VMs, I've come to recognize that some are more responsive than others, and that some distros just implement the same DE better than others. I thought it might be interesting to put together a list, maybe even a 2-d spreadsheet array, showing how resource-intensive each DE is in comparison to others. Everyone KNOWS that Openbox is less intensive than LXDE, and certainly less than Unity, but does anyone know by HOW MUCH? And when you know this answer, is it worth it to give up some features for the performance gain? Or would you give up some performance for features and/or eye candy? Would you make a different choice if you could quantify the increments? I think I would...but how about others? So here are my results of what I've found in VMs. Running in default environments, with no modifications or programs running, except the system monitor to obtain the reading, here are the results of each major DE that I have familiarity with: Distro DE RAM used Ubuntu Unity 460MB Ubuntu Gnome 365MB Ubuntu Mate 360MB Ubuntu Minibox Openbox 115MB Kubuntu KDE 425MB Lubuntu LXDE 170MB Xubuntu XFCE 325MB AntiX(Debian) IceWM 115MB Evolve (Debian) Budgie 180MB Manjaro LXQT 250MB Items that interested me or surprised me: 1. I find it interesting that Openbox and IceWM were so similar; can't help but wonder what Fluxbox would yield? 2. Not as big of a difference between OpenBox and LXDE as I would've thought. For me, extra features and configurability of LXDE are certainly worth extra overhead; too big of a jump for extra polish of XFCE. 3. Was surprised at the gap between LXDE & XFCE. Both are touted as lightweight alternatives. I knew LXDE was the lighter of the 2, but expected XFCE to be lower. To be fair, it IS more polished, IMO. 4. Was interested in the proposed switch from LXDE to LXQT. Now, not so much. Still better than alternatives, but why not just stick with gnome toolkit? Still better than XFCE, I suppose, but maybe XFCE becomes a more attractive option at that point? 5. Budgie desktop is a contender! A ringer for Chromebook/Chromium OS, but for Linux users. Simple, elegant, & responsive...OpenBox with polish! 6. Unity is an even bigger hog than I realized! I've got to make a change! I'm no KDE fan, but it's much more configurable and has a lot more eye-candy, and is still lighter weight than Unity! WTH?! I know this isn't a fool-proof scientific method, but I think it provides a good feel...a good frame of reference for folks to consider. I would love to do this with several other distros and DEs on those distros, but just don't have the time. In the spirit of curiousity, I'm wondering if anyone else is as interested in this as I am? If it's just me, thanks for letting me share and actually reading this far down! Conversely, if anyone else wants to play along and report results, I'll put together a table of distros & DEs with reported RAM usage in its default idle state, and post here. Perhaps Ray can report on Mint DEs; maybe SB can provide Arch info; maybe VT can tell us how KDE runs in Slack, etc... If mods allow, maybe stickied for future reference by others? If anyone else wants to report, how about we establish a guideline reference for the VM the distro is running in? For instance, most of the above are dual-core machines (some, like AntiX are single-core), with anywhere from 2GB-4GB of RAM (AntiX has 512MB). I don't know that it matters much, but the closer we can get to a "standard", the more reliable the results might be. And where we deviate, maybe we could note the deviation: such as, 512MB RAM instead of 2GB. Or maybe "bare metal installation" instead of VM. The only thing that I might suggest is a hard & fast unbreakable rule is that it MUST be a default configuration with no other programs running, except the System Monitor that provides the reading, and it must be obtained from a brand new startup, either restart or cold boot. Anyone else interested in this little project for the betterment of our knowledge base? Here is a summary of what has been submitted so far (05/03/2015): (anyone know how to copy/paste spreadsheet table into this forum? or any other suggestion regarding the best way to display this info?) Edited May 3, 2016 by Hedon James 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) I'll be able to give you some info: Debian Jessie (VM) Xfce 208MB Virtual RAM 2 GB Manjaro (netbook) Xfce 340MB Installed RAM 2 GB I'll get some Linux Mint results tomorrow. Surprised that Debian is that low and Manjaro is that high although Manjaro is on the rails and needs wifi. Debian is in a single core VM and Manjaro in a 2nd gen Atom netbook. I was a GNOME2 guy for years (never could get into KDE) but Unity and GNOME Shell really lost me. Cinnamon is my DE of choice now if I have the horsepower. Xfce has been a constant #2 choice forever. I like it because it doesn't require 3D capability and it's easy to configure without editing a bunch of text files. I like MATE a lot but I'd rather have Cinnamon if I can - otherwise I'll take Xfce. I know you like LXDE HJ but I just find it a little primitive. I've tried it a few times and if you have it set up the way LXLE does it's a pretty good DE. Rat Poison and its ilk are just too basic for me - and my clients who are used to Windows. Edited April 20, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 Wow! Great post, Hedon James! I don't have much in the way of comments, though, because I'm a Luddite who prefers to stay in the Linux Stone Age with my Slackware and Xfce. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) I have to say, Xfce is just brilliant. Highly configurable and light, but a slick looking interface out of the box if you're not in the mood for tweaking. I used to be a die hard KDE fan, but they lost me at plasma5. I spent a bit of time both ditstro and desktop hopping, and finally settled for Xfce on Arch (Althoug on Slackware or Debian installations such as my backup netbook I'll probably use KDE 4 until the support for it dies out). EDIT: Having said that, I also like cinnamon quite a bit. It seems to be the lightest of all Gnome based desktops. I had it installed previously, and (with re-elevated curiosity) I downloaded it again just now and found my themes and config files were still intact (although the wallpaper I had then wasn't around anymore). I'd kitted it out for a modern look with the 'Zorin8-black' theme. Edited April 20, 2016 by Dr. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 20, 2016 Share Posted April 20, 2016 (edited) Here are a few more datapoints for you: Linux Mint 17 (32 bit) netbook Xfce 156MB Installed RAM 1.5 GB MX-15 (32 bit) netbook Xfce 179MB Installed RAM 1 GB Linux Mint 17 desktop Cinnamon 581MB Installed RAM 16 GB Ubuntu 15.10 VM Unity 616MB Virtual RAM 2 GB Korora23 VM GNOME3 1003MB Virtual RAM 2 GB I suspect there is more at work here than meets the eye. Some machines I have are really memory challenged; my desktop has 16 GB of RAM. Any distro will take what you give it. That said, heavyweights are heavyweights and lightweights are lightweights - at least if all you run is the basic desktop and Gnome System Monitor. GNOME3 is ugly though. Edited April 20, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 20, 2016 Author Share Posted April 20, 2016 I'll be able to give you some info: Debian Jessie (VM) Xfce 208MB Virtual RAM 2 GB Manjaro (netbook) Xfce 340MB Installed RAM 2 GB I'll get some Linux Mint results tomorrow. Surprised that Debian is that low and Manjaro is that high although Manjaro is on the rails and needs wifi. Debian is in a single core VM and Manjaro in a 2nd gen Atom netbook. I was a GNOME2 guy for years (never could get into KDE) but Unity and GNOME Shell really lost me. Cinnamon is my DE of choice now if I have the horsepower. Xfce has been a constant #2 choice forever. I like it because it doesn't require 3D capability and it's easy to configure without editing a bunch of text files. I like MATE a lot but I'd rather have Cinnamon if I can - otherwise I'll take Xfce. I know you like LXDE HJ but I just find it a little primitive. I've tried it a few times and if you have it set up the way LXLE does it's a pretty good DE. Rat Poison and its ilk are just too basic for me - and my clients who are used to Windows. I didn't always like LXDE. It was an acquired taste. And I wholeheartedly agree with the "primitive" comment, especially in Lubuntu. Although I think PCLOS and Manjaro did a nice job with it. But it was LXLE that showed me what you can turn it into, which is what caused my change in mindset. After creating my Pangaea-Lubuntu remix, I was sold. I think LXDE is the most malleable DE...capable of polish to the degree you want, while maintaining low resource usage. I hear XFCE recommended for lower-specced machines, but if lightweight is the criteria, I just figured "why not just go LXDE?" Unless they mean that XFCE is a great mix of lightweight and polish? In which case, I understand! But now that I know how to polish up LXDE, I'm right back to the "why not just go LXDE?" thought?! And then I remember...this is Linux...everyone gets to choose EXACTLY what they want and I'm all for that! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 20, 2016 Author Share Posted April 20, 2016 Wow! Great post, Hedon James! I don't have much in the way of comments, though, because I'm a Luddite who prefers to stay in the Linux Stone Age with my Slackware and Xfce. We can live with that if you give us a reading for XFCE RAM use on Slack, from a cold boot/reboot with nothing but System Monitor running! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
V.T. Eric Layton Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 It's not much. I'm too lazy to check the actual figures right this moment, though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 I think that in the past if you wanted to be truly lightweight (at least before LXDE) you probably used IceWM or Openbox or equivalent. I've thought of Xfce as a simpler full featured DE - you don't need 3D capability, it is a little less memory intensive. Developers have pushed Xfce into some very nice looking desktops, as they have with LXDE. If you're familiar with how to tweak and customize LXDE or you're happy to use LXLE I agree it's a great desktop solution. All DE's have gotten weightier as the hardware has gotten more memory. The demise of the netbook has meant that you never see a newer machine with less than 3-4 GB of RAM. On such a unit you can run anything if the video is OK. If not there's always MATE or Xfce. Today there is just as much a problem of antiquated video on old machines as there is of limited memory resources. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Just for kicks, here's the ram usage specs from Arch: No X (from cold boot) - 52 Mb Xfce - 180 MB Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 Just for kicks, here's the ram usage specs from Arch: No X (from cold boot) - 52 Mb Xfce - 180 MB ohhh....terminal only....good call Dr. J! An excellent point of reference! And interesting that XFCE on certain distros is almost identical to lighter-weight LXDE. Perhaps those recommending XFCE as a lightweight distro aren't so silly after all? Perhaps empirical evidence that it isn't the distro, and it isn't the DE, but the combination of DE on the distro?! Which kinda sorta validates my intentions for this thread! Keep 'em coming! P.S. Anyone know how to paste/embed a spreadsheet table? I'd like to post a running tally and keep it updated in my initial #1 post, but I just can't seem to figure out how to do that and it's giving me fits! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 As the screenshot shows. Xfce in Arch with only xfce4-terminal running: 167 MB. I'm okay with just about any DE, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 (edited) I got my Arch install in VBox running again and right now it's using 207 MB. DE is Xfce. The box has 2 GB of Virtual RAM. Edited April 21, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 As the screenshot shows. Xfce in Arch with only xfce4-terminal running: 167 MB. I'm okay with just about any DE, I guess. Interesting DE Saturn. If it weren't for the terminal, I wouldn't have guessed it was XFCE. Is that default config? Or have you customized it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 Here are a few more datapoints for you: Linux Mint 17 (32 bit) netbook Xfce 156MB Installed RAM 1.5 GB MX-15 (32 bit) netbook Xfce 179MB Installed RAM 1 GB Linux Mint 17 desktop Cinnamon 581MB Installed RAM 16 GB Ubuntu 15.10 VM Unity 616MB Virtual RAM 2 GB Korora23 VM GNOME3 1003MB Virtual RAM 2 GB I suspect there is more at work here than meets the eye. Some machines I have are really memory challenged; my desktop has 16 GB of RAM. Any distro will take what you give it. That said, heavyweights are heavyweights and lightweights are lightweights - at least if all you run is the basic desktop and Gnome System Monitor. GNOME3 is ugly though. I agree. Your UbuntuVM is nearly identical to mine, except mine has 4GB RAM; yet your VM indicates about 150MB more usage, despite less RAM. WTH?! I expect variances...if mine is at 460MB, perhaps someone else's are 425MB-525MBish...but I didn't expect a nearly 34% increase. Is yours from a cold boot/reboot? Similarly, I'm surprised to see Cinnamon that high. I expected Cinnamon to resemble Gnome3, more or less, in terms of usage. While your ratio of Cinnamon to Unity makes sense, I'm finding it hard to believe that my Unity is so much less than your Cinnamon. Something else must be at play here. Distro, DE, and ________ (any thoughts)?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 One more for you. Apricity OS GNOME3 in Virtual Machine 758GB Virtual Machine has 2 GB RAM. Any way you look at it GNOME Shell is a heavyweight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 (edited) Distro, DE, and ________ (any thoughts)?! All of mine have been cold boot and just launched the System Monitor. There goes my memory theory at least as ar as VMs are concerned. Might be the way AMD handles VirtualBox as opposed to Intel???? I have the guest additions enabled. Don't know if you do. BTW my Cinnamon install is actually on the rails so that may make a difference where it has 16GB of RAM to play with. 580 MB is still peanuts compared to Windows 10 which would be sucking back 3 GB by the time it gets all the security stuff operational. Edited April 21, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 Mine is also an AMD, the Bulldozer (FX-6200) series, also 16GB RAM. VMs all have guest additions, so I can easily see the full screen. Perhaps integrated APU vs. video card? While the FX-6200 and my Asus motherboard have APU on board, I have also installed an ATI card, Radeon 6450 i think? Perhaps an APU pulls more RAM than a video card? I believe a VM would behave the same way as bare metal? I'm reaching though...don't know for certain. Just conjecturing and theorizing... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 21, 2016 Author Share Posted April 21, 2016 Distro, DE, and ________ (any thoughts)?! All of mine have been cold boot and just launched the System Monitor. There goes my memory theory at least as ar as VMs are concerned. Might be the way AMD handles VirtualBox as opposed to Intel???? I have the guest additions enabled. Don't know if you do. BTW my Cinnamon install is actually on the rails so that may make a difference where it has 16GB of RAM to play with. 580 MB is still peanuts compared to Windows 10 which would be sucking back 3 GB by the time it gets all the security stuff operational. Based on performance reports and popular opinion, I recently upgraded my Father-In-Law's laptop from Win7 to Win10. It's an older dual core Acer that was pretty snappy when we bought it for him, but has slowly congested up over time. I bumped him to 8GB RAM, but it was still dogged. As a last resort, I offered to bump it to Win10 for him (free) before he spent $$$ on a new machine (which would have Win10). (Linux would run GREAT on that machine, but I DO NOT want to support him with Linux...he takes up 2x more time than EVERYONE ELSE COMBINED with his tech requests....and he keeps asking for help that was already provided several times. He shouldn't have a computer! Luv him like he's my own father, but he's a tech nightmare!) Win10 breathed new life into that machine and he raves about "what I did" to make that machine run like new again. So chalk us up as another believer in the Win10 lightweight myth. Myth? yeah...myth! I have a Win7VM, 2-core with 3.5GB RAM, which uses 23% of Memory at idle desktop (AV running in background). This is approximately 820MB RAM usage. I also have a Win10VM, 2-core with 2.0GB RAM, which uses 64% of Memory at idle desktop (AV running in background). This is approximately 1,310MB RAM usage. But it does seem to run better...quicker, more responsive. WTH?! Maybe it has to do with CPU usage. The Win7VM idles at about 45% CPU, while the Win10VM idles at about 23% CPU, even though BOTH are 2-cores of my AMD FX-6200 host. Explain that one?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Yes I am pretty sure what we are seeing doesn't have much to do with our respective hardware differences. I have a Piledriver APU but I also have an AMD video card in the machine with its own VRAM. Frankly our machines are pretty comparable. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I am using fglrx and not the FOSS video driver but this is probably stretching to find an answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 (edited) I just had a look at the Windows 10 desktop I have. With a browser open with one tab, Win 10 was using 21% of the 16 GB RAM. Linux Mint is using 10% of the same amount of RAM. on my 2nd desktop with the same browser open. Add in all the CPU time needed for malware and security apps and it's no wonder Windows users complain about slow performance. Most of them don't have 16 GB of RAM either. They also never get rid of all the crapware the OEM loads onto their machine and most of that junk runs at startup. That said, Windows 10 is probably more effective in using the multicore CPU than Windows 7. One other point. A lot of the complaints I hear about Windows being slow revolves round boot time, and Windows 10 boots up a lot faster since most of the time it's just waking up from hibernation, not cold booting. Edited April 21, 2016 by raymac46 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted April 21, 2016 Share Posted April 21, 2016 Interesting DE Saturn. If it weren't for the terminal, I wouldn't have guessed it was XFCE. Is that default config? Or have you customized it? Yeah, customized -- I like to use a vertical panel when I can. Can't quite figure out how to set up a vertical panel that looks nice (to me) in LXDE, though. I was actually thinking that maybe I'd use xfce4-panel in LXDE, instead of lxpanel. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 What are you trying to make it look like Saturn? What you posted? I like a Unity style vertical panel, which turns out to be so easy I almost felt stupid for not figuring it out on my own. And LXDE actually uses a fair amount of components from XFCE, FWIW, so I'd say do it! LXDE is an interesting DE, running on Openbox, but reducing it to "window manager" status; with a bare minimum of LXDE components/tools; filling in with XFCE components under the hood. Depending on your perspective, the modularity is its greatest strength, as well as greatest weakness. I imagine it's a little harder to polish an "integrated DE" when its a Frankenstein. But I've always ripped out Rythmbox, Brasero, and some other gnome-specific tools in favor of Banshee, Xfburn, and others I like better. So the modularity just dovetails with what I've always done anyway, but with lesser system resource draw now. My biggest beef with LXDE is the PCManFM file manager, which I find to be insufficient for MY needs. It's fine for simple file management, and for just about everyone else that I provide support to. But I'm often sym-linking, right clicking in file menu for "open as admin" and "open in term" and "compress PDF script" and "share folder" and so on... I've historically installed Nautilus in LXDE for my heavy-lifting stuff, but it's getting so stripped down that its starting to approach PCManFM...but at least I can "build it back up" to a suitable level. Lately, I've been running Caja and have been extremely happy with the results. I think I'm making the switch in Ubuntu 16.04 LTS...my next OS remix of exactly what I want. Stay tuned for that...probably around the first "point release" 16.04.1... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
saturnian Posted April 22, 2016 Share Posted April 22, 2016 Have any examples of how you set up a vertical panel in LXDE, Hedon James? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 22, 2016 Author Share Posted April 22, 2016 Spoiler alert...this is a beta or RC of an Lubuntu/LXDE remix I'm currently working on, but waiting until the first "point release" to finalize. An LXDE mime of Unity, running in a VirtualBox VM (the shaded box areas in bottom right corner and right edge are "edge gestures" for workspaces (bottom right) and currently running applications on desktop (right). Rather than point & click an icon with mouse, or use keyboard combination to invoke, I prefer to use a mouse gesture to invoke by swiping over that area. Just something that I LIKE, lol...: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reynaldo Posted April 24, 2016 Share Posted April 24, 2016 you can always use a google drive spreadsheet to illustrate the live document without editing permission. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raymac46 Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Confirming the antiX result from earlier - on my i386 netbook it's running at 98 MB of RAM with IceWM - pretty cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted April 27, 2016 Share Posted April 27, 2016 Debian Jessie with Cinnamon clocks in at 420MB used. I did have a pure command-line Debian setup at one point as a virtualbox experiment, but I never checked the ram usage. I might set it up again when I have time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hedon James Posted April 27, 2016 Author Share Posted April 27, 2016 spreadsheet updated in original post. keep 'em coming guys, and I'll do my best to keep it updated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. J Posted April 30, 2016 Share Posted April 30, 2016 (edited) Just decided to take some free time and do something (moderately) recreational... got these statistics through experimentation with Arch Linux (in a virtual machine with 2GB of RAM available) using free -m in xterm to get a reading for ram usage while influencing it as little as possible. (Gnome System Monitor is surprisingly heavy) Hope that helps... FOOTNOTE: I thought cinnamon was lighter than it turns out, I guess minimalist Arch Linux will reveal any desktop's true colours. Edited April 30, 2016 by Dr. J Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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