I gave my old 512MB/1GB RPi SBCs to my local Code Club, as I wasn't using them, I just kept my 4B/4GB & my 400, more than ample for my future needs too.

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So good to recycle or repurpose tech or anything really..
Good for you, good for code club, good for our planet

This topic is not “How to hobble RAM” or “How to waste money on RAM”

The infographic was the first clue followed by CAD and Virtual Machine running.

It should be clear to all that this is a simplistic attempt to show off inefficiency designed to fool the unwary.

First make a VM and allocate an undisclosed amount of RAM which when running robs the host machine’s RAM – simple…

Then take a real heavy niche app FreeCAD that does not figure on most people’s radar – run it with high tessellation and it will eat up all your RAM. Tweak the tessellation to get your desired consumption of RAM – simple…

Then on top of all this open FireFox and Thunderbird and say “ Nothing special, yet 7.5G consumed.” - simple…

Please: If you want to make a point – instead of a useless infographic – post a full screenshot showing Htop on top, listing in memory order with all of the command line visible. Better still make a short screencast video of this gross inefficiency or celebration of wasted RAM – thanks.

My answer is 'no'. Not a waste. Of course your use case may be different than mine. Obviously.

I fail to see what is 'gross' about it . Nice to have more RAM when it is needed. One should never have to deal with the swap area when running applications. Ever. Not in this day and age. RAM is cheap cheap cheap (DDR4 16GB is around $50 -- cheaper than a raspberry pi 4 ).. at least right now. That said, you are right, most times, RAM usage is hovering around 2-3G (Firefox and Thunderbird is always open, KDE is the DE). But when my wife wants to do some photo editing in a Windows VM, then start the VM and away you go. The RAM (and CPU cores) are available. Ie. When you need it, it's there, ... no wishing for more. I can pull up htop/bashtop and take a snapshot of the active processes, if that would help... although the above picture is of the graphic system monitor that is running.

Using bashtop, below is the VM running and the normal system as a reference.

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Yes - as requested previously...

I did ask “post a full screenshot showing Htop on top, listing in memory order with all of the command line visible.”
top and Htop are reportedly the best time proven tools for this purpose so surprised you chose to use bashtop…? Even so I am sure this bashtop must be able to list in memory usage order with command or arguments in full view. Again for some reason you chose not to do this…? it's so easy in htop - just click the mem% header - job done - hope this helps?

Here are some of my htop screenshots https://imgur.com/a/GayLGZg

If your other half is using the VM for editing photos – how are you using FreeCAD, Firefox and Thunderbird at the same time – as stated in your previous post #13…?

Who said using? Freecad may be open for when I get back to it, plus my wife could be using Firebox and Thunderbird as well while working in VM . The VM only takes up part of the screen (just another fancy app really). No harm in keeping multiple applications open! This isn't DOS where only one app need be running at a time.... That said, I 'could' RDP into that machine from one of my other desktops/laptops and be using that machine at the same time as my wife. I don't do this though as I have my own development workstation available. Linux is multi-user after all. Sometimes I haves SSH'd to our general computer to do some work, or check settings, etc... While my wife is working on it. Linux is neat that way.

When I get home, I can get some standard htop shots.... I found bashtop awhile back and liked it's look. Same information as htop and more.

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BTW – I think you are showing all of your 12 cpu threads for each process command? In htop you can toggle this by using shift h (H) as lower case h is the help menu

Using at the same time – you implied that was how you accounted for that huge amount of RAM being consumed per the infographic. #13

We can all install niche apps that are known to soak up RAM and then tweak them to show any excess figure we choose. We can also invent scenarios where we soak up RAM for no real purpose other than to somehow justify money wasted on RAM or make a false case for needing more. We can also leave apps open or closed at will doing nothing but take up RAM

Realistically I demonstrated 20 tabs open in FireFox-ESR using DistroWatch’s Home page up front using just 679MiB of RAM. I then countered another poster claiming to have 100 tabs open with my own 100 tabs using just 1.67 GiB RAM. As we all know this is was an entirely useless exercise as we can bookmark groups of tabs ready for use with one click.

Talking of useless scenarios and useless exercises - Did you see my 3GiB RAM old 2008 HP G60 laptop playing three web page videos at the same time – with LO Writer loaded ready to edit…? – easily doable with RAM to spare…!
Pick any of the three vids to view here on the imgur link – all roughly the same..
https://imgur.com/a/pImTXcK ( NOT adult movies ) As I said a waste of space or useless exercise as my old brain cannot take in three movies at the same time as editing a LO Writer text document – but goes to show how easily an old laptop can cope – if you look at the performance monitors, bottom right, RAM shown in red graph, you can see that just under half of the 2.92 GiB of available RAM is being used and that is with recording the screencast video live…!

Thanks for the 'H' tip. Didn't know that was there .

Of course. I know exactly what you mean. What we call 'old' laptops/desktops any more are really capable machines. Maybe not quite as 'snappy' though. I just gave three older laptops (loaded with KUbuntu) away recently to a friend that had a use for them. It wasn't always so though back in the 80s and 90s where moving to a 'new' system was usually a 'big' leap in performance. Those were heady years. In recent memory, the only real big performance jump was going from a HDD to SSD. That put a grin on my face when I transitioned! Now, what is a few more cycles really worth to most of us? or FPS if gaming (go from 150 to 155)? Ho Hum....

Anyway, it is all on how each of us want to get out of our laptops/desktops/servers. What I show above is realistic for my use. Not made up at all. That said, the only machines I have that have real 'limited' resources is my RPIs, Picos, Arduinos, etc. and I use accordingly . In fact most run headless, so most are normally swimming in memory (the RPIs anyway).

Bottom line... Wasted memory? Naw, again, it is 'there ready for use when and if ya need it'. Anyway, just another way of thinking about memory (as long as it is affordable of course). Could I get by with less? Obviously. Do I want to (or need to)? No. So I don't, end of story .

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What was not mentioned:
1. nowadays a modern game requires >16GB RAM, and there are a lot of apps (a huge amount of apps) which will not even start on 1 GB.
Actually I wanted to write some python code on RPi3 and the development environment (pycharm) just could not be started on it.
2. Linux does not really care about the amount of memory, it will just run fine with 1 GB, 2 GB or 8 GB almost the same way. (obviously only if it is really enough for the job). The difference is the speed, the execution time of your commands. Linux will use the free ram to speed up the system (and does it very well), especially if you have a very slow and old hdd.
So you can improve the responsiveness, the user experience by adding memory (which cannot be measured by htop). In fact, this is the first step that should be recommended for relatively slow hardware.
3. If you think that 1 GB (2 GB) is enough for you, just use it, there is nothing wrong with it, but there are others who definitely need more.

Just use a programming/text editor like geany, kate, etc. No need for fancy IDEs like pycharm. In fact since day one, in Windows I use Notepad++, and in Linux geany to write Python (or any language, c, c++, fortran, etc) code... Or from the command line, nano, vi, joe, or whatever.

You're not on any social networks. lol

I can use 3gb browsing much less intensively.

Have you ever tried a virtual box?

I don't believe it's about the age of the computer, although newer computers tend to accomodate higher specs.

If you professionally monotask, you grasp your hardware demands. Modestly I need a quad-core 8gb desktop & 4gb laptop.

I am a cyber trash collector.
My daily activity consist of reading emails, listen music, browse linux forums, read news, watch Netflix.
2G RAM is enough for me, and the 'trashes' will last me for years - just bought a 4K TV, won't buy anything new in the foreseeable future, let alone RAM.

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Hey, me neither - I only discovered it last week
If you ever get to use Xterminal or UXterminal chances are the terminal will open in a tiny window with real tiny text - there is a slightly weird menu that you get by holding down Ctrl and right clicking in the window, you have to keep the right click down; as you drag an extensive menu appears where you can select small, medium or large text...


Operating CAD especially 3D CAD such as SolidWorks - you were given a Workstation by the IT department: usually made by Dell. SolidWorks stipulated that buying more than 4GiB RAM was wasted RAM as SolidWorks could only address 4G...
This did not stop the Arms Race as a new Workstation was required every three years due to XP or whatever loosing support. Suppose SolidWorks, Dell and MSoft were in bed together to keep warm Heady days...


As I said we can all invent reasons....
Take the Quarry Truck next time you go shopping Greta will kick yo A**

Respectfully, you're a Slackware user. Slackware users still compile everything from scratch, like it was 1995.....and to you, that's perfectly normal. You're a veteran, and have doubtless always been used to doing this. Don't get me wrong; someone has to compile stuff, or even repos wouldn't have copies for all to download/install.....but it's definitely a skill. Some sail through this stuff with the greatest of ease, while others will never master it in a million years. Is that sufficient reason to deny them the chance to ever try Linux?

I guess Andy-1 is referring to the 'modern' breed of Linux users; refugees from Windows, never compiled a single thing in their lives, and with the present crop of very easy-to-use distros now available, they have no need to do so.....because it's all been done FOR them.


Mike.

For what it's worth... I have a relatively new ASUS motherboard and an Intel Core i9-11900K processor. The motherboard can accept up to 128 GB of ram, so I stuffed it full.

I browse the web and write small utilities in C... I'm not a gamer. I find that the 128 GB of ram mostly buffers writes to slow devices like Thumb drives. I can use DD to "erase" an entire thumb drive in a minute or so, but then the rest of the data (cached in ram) takes much longer to finish writing.

I've experimented with 64 GB of ram (two DIMM modules), 32 GB (1 module) as well as all 4 modules (128 GB). I honestly "felt" no performance difference with different ram sizes. I'm sure 64 GB is way more than enough as well as 32 GB, but I want both channels filled so I need 2 modules (64 GB).

I would have bought two 16 GB modules for a total of 32 GB if I knew then what I know now. Absurd amounts of ram do nothing for performance. This MAY NOT BE TRUE for a gaming computer, so look into that also.

Hope this helps.