| Slackware - ARM This forum is for the discussion of Slackware ARM. |
| Notices |
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
Are you new to LinuxQuestions.org? Visit the following links:
Site Howto |
Site FAQ |
Sitemap |
Register Now
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
|
 |
02-10-2014, 08:56 AM
|
#1
|
|
Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: /dev/null
Distribution: Slackware, Fedora, Debian, Arch, Ubuntu
Posts: 101
Rep: 
|
Slackware on the Raspberry Pi is a Memory Hog?!?
I installed Slackware 14.1 on my Raspberry Pi (512 meg RAM) using these instructions. To my surprise the memory footprint of it booting into the CLI is approximately 360 megs (determined using "free"). Even my x86 install on my laptop uses less memory (also a 32 bit 14.1 install). Raspbian and Arch on the same Pi use < 100 megs for a CLI boot. I think of Slackware as a lean, mean computing machine, which is why this surprised me.
So why is it this much of a memory hog? Inefficient distribution of RAM to the Framebuffer/GPU? Daemons starting at boot? If that is the case why is my x86 utilizing less memory?
On a side note, is the kernel for Slackware compiled for a hard or soft float?
I love Slackware immensely and will continue to use it on the Raspberry Pi, I am just curious. |
|
|
|
|
02-10-2014, 10:44 AM
|
#2
|
|
Senior Member
Registered: Nov 2003
Distribution: Slackʍɐɹǝ
Posts: 1,488
|
Check some of the answers on my post http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...pi-4175492466/
Seems it will run on the PI but is not optimized for it. I tried a minimal install and had all kinds of problems until I started over with a full install. I got mine running fine but started stressing it and eventually it went in the weeds for a few hours and I killed power when I got home and that corrupted the drive so I need to install again. |
|
|
|
|
02-10-2014, 11:18 AM
|
#3
|
|
Senior Member
Registered: May 2008
Location: Romania
Distribution: DARKSTAR Linux 2008.1
Posts: 2,727
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by haziz
I installed Slackware 14.1 on my Raspberry Pi (512 meg RAM) using these instructions. To my surprise the memory footprint of it booting into the CLI is approximately 360 megs (determined using "free"). Even my x86 install on my laptop uses less memory (also a 32 bit 14.1 install). Raspbian and Arch on the same Pi use < 100 megs for a CLI boot. I think of Slackware as a lean, mean computing machine, which is why this surprised me.
So why is it this much of a memory hog? Inefficient distribution of RAM to the Framebuffer/GPU? Daemons starting at boot? If that is the case why is my x86 utilizing less memory?
On a side note, is the kernel for Slackware compiled for a hard or soft float?
I love Slackware immensely and will continue to use it on the Raspberry Pi, I am just curious. |
Something is wrong with your setup...
Because I use SlackwareARM 14.1 (also) in a 10" WonderMedia 8650 (ARMv5TE) netbook, sporting just 256MB RAM. Still, my setup having a full install (excluding KDE, KDEI) and it run nice and responsive under X.org, using XFCE4 as DE.
So, I can't claim that Slackware-ARM is a Memory Hog. 
Last edited by Darth Vader; 02-10-2014 at 11:20 AM.
|
|
|
|
|
02-10-2014, 11:22 AM
|
#4
|
|
Moderator
Registered: Dec 2009
Location: Germany
Distribution: Whatever fits the task best
Posts: 17,148
|
Have you checked with top or htop which process is using that much memory? Also, what exactly does free report?
|
|
|
|
|
02-10-2014, 01:58 PM
|
#5
|
|
Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: /dev/null
Distribution: Slackware, Fedora, Debian, Arch, Ubuntu
Posts: 101
Original Poster
Rep:
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by TobiSGD
Have you checked with top or htop which process is using that much memory? Also, what exactly does free report?
|
Not yet but I will. The RAM is shared between the GPU and CPU. I wonder if a good chunk is being reserved for the GPU. There are ways to adjust that with the other distros. I am mostly using Slack from the command line and don't need fancy graphics. |
|
|
|
|
02-10-2014, 02:11 PM
|
#6
|
|
Member
Registered: Dec 2013
Location: Italy
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 635
Rep:
|
Right after boot my Pi has 120Mb used most of which is cache and buffers ... the real usage is less then 20Mb. If I then start X with fluxbox window manager real usage rises to 25Mb.
Unfortunately I'm editing from my AC100 and cut and paste does not work from xterm ... otherwise I'd post the output of free to show the mem usage of my Pi.
I'm just guessing: you have enabled tmpfs in fstab that by default will use 50% of the available ram.
|
|
|
|
|
02-11-2014, 09:21 AM
|
#7
|
|
Moderator
Registered: Dec 2009
Location: Germany
Distribution: Whatever fits the task best
Posts: 17,148
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by louigi600
I'm just guessing: you have enabled tmpfs in fstab that by default will use 50% of the available ram.
|
No, it will not. The 50% default is the limit how much it can use. tmpfs will only use as much RAM as it needs to store the data, if you only have a 1MB file on a tmpfs it will only use 1MB. |
|
|
|
|
02-11-2014, 12:25 PM
|
#8
|
|
Member
Registered: Dec 2013
Location: Italy
Distribution: Slackware
Posts: 635
Rep:
|
That's true but depending on what you do with the tmpfs it can happen that it gets used to something close to the default maximum allowed.
I've seen that happen on my printserver running on a seagate dockstar from readoly filesystem where all the stuff that needs to be written ends up in tmpfs. But it was just a guess with out having the output of free or /proc/meminfo ... ina nay case there is something odd with that system: my Pi is not on right now but I've handy my hedless salvaged tablet with a very similar setup to my Pi (practically the same packages installed and same amount of ram) and here is what it has to say about memory usage
Code:
root@headless:~# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496156 244948 251208 0 14068 211048
-/+ buffers/cache: 19832 476324
Swap: 0 0 0
root@headless:~#
and if I start X
Code:
root@headless:~# ps -ef | grep -E "X|fluxbox"
root 816 800 0 17:30 pts/1 00:00:00 xinit /usr/lib/X11/xinit/xinitrc -- /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /root/.serverauth.800
root 817 816 0 17:30 tty7 00:00:00 /usr/bin/X :0 -auth /root/.serverauth.800
root 822 816 0 17:30 pts/1 00:00:00 fluxbox
root 837 594 0 17:31 pts/1 00:00:00 grep -E X|fluxbox
root@headless:~# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496156 258380 237776 0 14760 217832
-/+ buffers/cache: 25788 470368
Swap: 0 0 0
root@headless:~#
Memory usage is so low I've not even considered configuring swap. |
|
|
|
|
02-11-2014, 05:51 PM
|
#9
|
|
Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: /dev/null
Distribution: Slackware, Fedora, Debian, Arch, Ubuntu
Posts: 101
Original Poster
Rep:
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by TobiSGD
Have you checked with top or htop which process is using that much memory? Also, what exactly does free report?
|
I finally did. Interestingly this time is is using only 200 megs (I did see 360 megs last time just after booting into the CLI):
Output from free this time:
Code:
haziz@slack:~$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 496828 202092 294736 0 34192 143168
-/+ buffers/cache: 24732 472096
Swap: 999996 0 999996
Output from top:
Code:
Tasks: 62 total, 1 running, 61 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 11.7%us, 4.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 82.4%id, 1.0%wa, 0.2%hi, 0.1%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 496828k total, 205348k used, 291480k free, 35236k buffers
Swap: 999996k total, 0k used, 999996k free, 144592k cached
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
621 haziz 20 0 2840 1064 836 R 5.7 0.2 0:00.06 top
1 root 20 0 1824 636 568 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.91 init
2 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kthreadd
3 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.12 ksoftirqd/0
5 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kworker/0:0H
6 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.12 kworker/u2:0
7 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.33 rcu_preempt
8 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_bh
9 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rcu_sched
10 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khelper
11 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 kdevtmpfs
12 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 netns
13 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.20 kworker/0:1
14 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 writeback
15 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 bioset
16 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kblockd
17 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.29 khubd
18 root 0 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 rpciod
19 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 khungtaskd
20 root 20 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kswapd0
|
|
|
|
|
02-11-2014, 06:06 PM
|
#10
|
|
Moderator
Registered: Dec 2009
Location: Germany
Distribution: Whatever fits the task best
Posts: 17,148
|
There seems to be confusion about what free reports. The memory actually used by the system for applications can be found in the second row, in your case about 24MB. Have a look here: http://www.linuxatemyram.com/ |
|
|
1 members found this post helpful.
|
|
02-11-2014, 07:49 PM
|
#11
|
|
Member
Registered: Jan 2012
Location: /dev/null
Distribution: Slackware, Fedora, Debian, Arch, Ubuntu
Posts: 101
Original Poster
Rep:
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by TobiSGD
There seems to be confusion about what free reports. The memory actually used by the system for applications can be found in the second row, in your case about 24MB. Have a look here: http://www.linuxatemyram.com/ |
Thanks. That makes for interesting reading. Interestingly the man page for free does not make that explicit.
Thanks again. |
|
|
|
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 01:45 AM.
|
|
|
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.
|
|
 Latest Threads
LQ News
|
|
