RAM memory problems on Toshiba Satellite

arijan · 05-24-2008, 05:52 AM

I've been searching for an answer for a long time, and @ the end I had to post the thread.

Ubuntu (also holds for Suse & Fedora) takes initially around 550mb of my ram on Toshiba Satellite A210 (1gb ram - actually crappy 800mb + 2gb of swap).
When I count all processes from system monitor it comes up to 200mb - what takes the other 300?!!!

And if I want to run any application which requires initial 300mb (firefox with 5-10 tabs, or God forbid opening Maya) - it stucks and slows of course.

On my desktop pc with 2x512 mb ram I never had any problems - linux run with 100 - 200 mb and that's listed in system monitor precisely.

I compared than with fresh instalation of win xp sp2 - to be sure if it is system or hardware - and it's the same - something on both xp and lnx takes too much of ram.

What am I missing here?

jschiwal · 05-24-2008, 07:15 AM

Unused ram is evil ram. Much of the ram is used for caching. If you have a 32 bit distro, some memory space may be taken up for devices. However with 1 GB of ram that wouldn't be the case.

arijan · 05-24-2008, 07:33 AM

Thanks for reply.

Both lnx and xp were (are) 32 bits.

"some memory space may be taken up for devices" - yes, but isn't it too much for devices to be taken more than 300mb?!

Is there any workaround except upgrading the ram with another 1gb?

syg00 · 05-24-2008, 07:38 AM

Post output from "free -m" (use code tags so it lines up properly)

arijan · 05-24-2008, 08:10 AM

Code:

               total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           882        721        161          0         21        296
-/+ buffers/cache:        403        479
Swap:         1608          0       1608

Here is the list. Right now only firefox is opened aside of the base system devices.

syg00 · 05-24-2008, 08:32 AM

That looks o.k. - post again when things are slow.
Which Ubuntu (i.e. which kernel ???)

arijan · 05-24-2008, 08:43 AM

Code:

        
               total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           882        866         16          0         30        254
-/+ buffers/cache:        581        300
Swap:         1608         33       1575

By the time passing it's getting worst - and I still hold with same apps opened - nothing except firefox & terminal. This is ubuntu 8.04 kernel 2.6.24-12 (it's beta, but it was the same with the previous one - 7.10).

In this count, if I open some additional application I'd just wait an hour for each single operation (or even click).

syg00 · 05-24-2008, 09:08 AM

I'd be guessing F/F - it's been a pig for ages.
The new(er) V3 is supposed to be better.

arijan · 05-24-2008, 09:42 AM

With Opera there's the feeling that it breaths easier (100mb less), but the problem stays.

I simply can't get over it. What if I had 512 of ram.

Now I'll go buy 2gb more - and I'm not buying the memory actually - but my nerves!

I remember running Fedora 6 with gnome on desktop pc, and it was taking about 100mb of ram.
Makes me think that it's something about the laptop hardware, not the distro issue.

And this is not acceptable.

syg00 · 05-24-2008, 09:58 AM

Mmmmm - I recently had to throw out a Toshi SatellitePro 4600.
*Very* old (256Meg, P III-666), but it ran Ubuntu fine - basically mail and browsing (F/F) only.
Chewed up a bit of swap after a while, but was fine for several hours in the evenings when I had it on in the loungeroom.