VERY high memory usage.....Normal?

bison42 · 08-21-2001, 07:13 PM

Okay, first, the facts and then the question:

Distribution: Mandrake 8.0 (net download)
GUI: KDE
Computer: Intel PII MMX
64 MB SDRAM
Ultra ATA IDE 20 GB Hard Drive
Dual Boot (Win 95 sitting on other partition)

Now, the problem is that the GUI, where-as running at an acceptable speed, does seem a wee bit slow compared to Win 95. When I checked the memory usage, I found Linux/KDE to be using 64% total memory at Idle, with 97% physical memory being used (60.08 MB), and 41% Virtual memory being used (35.99 MB). Doesn't this seem somewhat high? I was under the impression that Linux had a much smaller footprint than Windows, so this seems to me to indicate some type of problem.

Also, anyone out there manage to get a SoundBlaster 16/AWE 32 to work under linux? I know it isn't a hardware problem as it works well under windows, but being a fantastic newbie, I have yet to figure out how to get it working under Linux and would appreciate some advice.

Thanks,.....,Rob.

trickykid · 08-21-2001, 07:18 PM

yes the high memory is normal, linux tries to load as much as it can into memory, that way eliminating getting info from the hard drive not as nearly as often...
sound blaster... try using sndconfig to configure your sound... i think that is the correct command.. its been awhile...

mcleodnine · 08-21-2001, 08:46 PM

What services are you currently runnnig? Don't run a httpd server if you don't really need it. Try ps -aux or pstree to see what's running.

Hmmm. Only 64MB RAM? Gonna be a lot of spooling on the swap space. Have you configured idedma yet?

You may need to build some. kernel modules (or in my case just build them into the kernel coz modules for boot + I/O scare me.)

Find out what kind of drive controller you're using and get it built (as above). Then try 'hdparm /dev/hdX' to show how the current ide is configured. You're interested in 'using dma = 1', but only after you've confirmed some level of kernel/module support.

(Hint: RAM is dirt cheap right now.)

jharris · 08-22-2001, 02:57 AM

Have a read of this thread - it might explain a little http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...&threadid=2576

HTH

Jamie...

acrid · 08-23-2001, 10:57 AM

OK, but is it normal for X to use a huge amount of memory by itself?

I have a screen shot here

X is using a whole lot of memory. When I check machines at work, they only show like 12Meg of memory for X. Any suggestions as to what I can do?

Relevant info:
Mandrake 8.0
256 M PC133
Celeron 400 (yeah, I know)

TNT2
XFree86 4.1.0
Blackbox

Um...I think that's it.