[lug] new install

[Ken MacFerrin]

Daniel Webb wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 15, 2007 at 03:15:34AM -0600, Ken MacFerrin wrote:
> 
>> I'd disagree.. those programs are only storing that much in memory
>> because it's available.  Firefox, java and adobe actually run quite well
>> under XFCE4 on an old 600Mhz, 192MB Ram ultraportable laptop I have
>> sitting around.  It almost feels snappy even.  I can't speak for OOffice
>> on that machine since Xubuntu installs AbiWord by default, but otherwise
>> it works quite well for light duty use..
> 
> Yes, I guess I overstated it a bit, but I don't think by too much.  A lot of
> it depends on how you use your system.  My mom only has one web page or
> document up at a time, and closes down the program when not using it.  If you
> use your computer like that, even Windows 98 is fairly stable and memory-light
> (I think she actually hit that bug once in Win98 where it would crash after 40
> days or whatever).  The way I use my computer, there are many Firefox tabs
> open, and several OO documents open at any given time.  For that kind of use,
> 128M won't cut it.  I have a lot of old Thinkpads, and the least memory I have
> been able to get away with when using Firefox and OO is about 192M (but 228M
> is better and that is the max for the 600E).
> 
> Also, both Firefox and OO seem to have some hefty memory leaks, so you need to
> restart them regularly if you have a very low-memory system.  Right now on my
> system they aren't using much memory, but a few weeks ago I saw OO using 450M
> of memory with one small document open.  I've seen Firefox do similar.  Much
> of that memory was swapping and dragging down the system, so I don't totally
> buy the "they only use memory because they can" argument.  If they're using
> swapped memory that drags down the whole system "because they can", they
> aren't very well written.
> 

True.. I should probably qualify that the little armada m300 laptop I'm
referring to usually just has a few tabs of firefox, thunderbird and a
few ssh session terminals running at any given time..