Bryan Quigley (Posts about Memory Usage)

2024 LiveCD Memory Usage Compare

Bryan Quigley — Sun, 20 Oct 2024 00:54:00 GMT

I am using pretty much the exact same setup I did in 2020. Let's see who is more efficient in a live session!

But first let's take a look at the image sizes:

Charge Open Movie is what I viewed if I can make it to YouTube.

I decided to be more selective and remove those that did very porly at 1.5G, which was most.

Ubuntu - booted but desktop not stable, took 1.5 minutes to load Firefox
Xubuntu-minimal - does not include a web browser so can't further test. Snap is preinstaled even though no apps are - but trying to install a web browser worked but couldn't start.
Manjaro KDE - Desktop loads, but browser doesn't
Xubuntu - laggy when Firefox is opened, can't load sites
Ubuntu Mate -laggy when Firefox is opened, can't load sites
Kubuntu - laggy when Firefox is opened, can't load sites
Linux Mint 22 - desktop loads, browsers isn't responsive

Fedora video is a bit laggy, but watchable.. EndlessOS with Chromium is the most smooth and resonsive watching YouTube.

For fun let's look at startup time with 2GB (with me hitting buttons as needed to open a folder)

Conclusion

Lubuntu lowered it's memory usage from 2020 for loading a desktop 585M to 450M! Kudos to Lubuntu team!
Both Fedora and Endless desktops worked in lower memory then 2020 too!
Lubuntu, Fedora and Endless all used Zram.
Chromium has definitely improved it's memory usage as last time Endless got dinged for using it. Now it appears to work better then Firefox.

Notes:

qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -cdrom lubuntu-24.04.1-desktop-amd64.iso -m 1.5G -smp 4 -cpu host -vga virtio --full-screen
Screen size was set to 1080p/60Hz.
I tried to reproduce 585M on Lubuntu 20.04 build, but it failed on anything below 1G.
Getting out of full screen on YouTube apparently is an intensive task. Dropped testing that.
All Ubuntu was 24.04.1 LTS.

Lubuntu Memory Usage and Rsyslog

Bryan Quigley — Sat, 25 Nov 2023 02:42:05 GMT

In 2020 I reviewed LiveCD memory usage.

I was hoping to review either Wayland only or immutable only (think ostree/flatpak/snaps etc) but for various reasons on my setup it would just be a Gnome compare and that's just not as interesting. There are just to many distros/variants for me to do a full followup.

Lubuntu has previously always been the winner, so let's just see how Lubuntu 23.10 is doing today.

Previously in 2020 Lubuntu needed to get to 585 MB to be able to run something with a livecd. With a fresh install today Lubuntu can still launch Qterminal with just 540 MB of RAM (not apples to apples, but still)! And that's without Zram that it had last time.

I decided to try removing some parts of the base system to see the cost of each component (with 10MB accuracy). I disabled networking to try and make it a fairer compare.

Snapd - 30 MiB
Printing - cups foomatic - 10 MiB
rsyslog/crons - 10 MiB

Rsyslog impact

Out of the 3 above it's felt more like with rsyslog (and cron) are redundant in modern Linux with systemd. So I tried hitting the log system to see if we could get a slowdown, by every .1 seconds having a service echo lots of gibberish.

After an hour of uptime, this is how much space was used:

syslog 575M
journal at 1008M

CPU Usage on fresh boot after:

With Rsyslog

gibberish service was at 1% CPU usage
rsyslog was at 2-3%
journal was at ~4%

Without Rsyslog

gibberish service was at 1% CPU usage
journal was at 1-3%

That's a pretty extreme case, but does show some impact of rsyslog, which in most desktop settings is redundant anyway.

Testing notes:

2 CPUs (Copy host config)
Lubuntu 23.10 install
no swap file
ext4, no encryption
login automatically
Used Virt-manager and only default change was enabling EUFI

2020 LiveCD Memory Usage Compare

Bryan Quigley — Tue, 23 Jun 2020 02:42:05 GMT

Time for a 20.04 LTS LiveCD memory comparison with a bunch more distros. I last did one in 2016.

Using Lubuntu as an example base memory usage approximately doubled from 2016 (251M) to 2020 (585M). Those numbers aren't strictly comparable because I'm not using the exact same setup as in 16.04 and I enabled more modern features (virtio graphics, EUFI, 4 cores).

Lubuntu is able to work with less at least partially because of Zram. The other distro that has Zram enabled is Endless, but they also use the Chromium browser which generally uses more memory than Firefox (also Elementary uses Ephipany). My guess is if Xubuntu enabled zram it's profile would more closely match Lubuntu.

Notes:

Time limit for each applicaton launch is approximately 30 seconds.
Accuracy over 1G is by .25G increments. Under 1G, I tried to narrow it down to at least .1G.
Getting out of full screen on YouTube apparently is an intensive task. Dropped testing that.
Screen size was set to 1080p/60Hz.
Sample qemu line: qemu-system-x86_64 -enable-kvm -cdrom clear-33300-live-desktop.iso -smbios file=/usr/share/ovmf/OVMF.fd -m 1024M -smp 4 -cpu host -vga virtio --full-screen
All Ubuntu derivatives were from 20.04 LTS

Ubuntu 16.04 LiveCD Memory Usage Compared

Bryan Quigley — Fri, 27 May 2016 19:30:38 GMT

The latest Ubuntu LTS is out, so it's time for an updated memory usage comparison. Boots means it will boot to a desktop that you can move the mouse on and is fully loaded. While Browser and Smooth means we can load my website in a reasonable amount of time.

Takeaways

Lubuntu is super efficient Lubuntu is amazing in how much less memory it can boot in. I believe it is still the only one with ZRam enabled by default, which certainly helps a bit. I actually did the memory usage for ZRam to the nearest MB for fun. The 32 bit version boots in 224 MB, and is smooth with Firefox at only 240MB! The 64 bit boots at only 25 MB more (251), but is needs 384 MB to be smooth. If you are memory limited, change flavors first, 32-bit won't help that much Looking just at "Browser and Smooth" because that's a more clear use-case. There is no significant memory difference between the 32 and 64 bit varients of: Xubuntu, Ubuntu Gnome, Ubuntu (Unity). Lubuntu, Kubuntu, and Ubuntu Mate do have significant deltas, which let's explore: Kubuntu - If you are worried about memory requirements do not use. Ubuntu Mate - It's at most a 128MB loss, likely less. (We did that to 128MB accuracy). Lubuntu 64 bit is smooth at 384MB. 32 bit saves almost 144 MB! If you are severally memory limited 32-bit Lubuntu becomes your only choice. Hard Memory Limit The 32-bit hard memory requirement is 224 MB. (Below that is panics) The 64-bit hard memory requirement is 251 MB. Both of these were tested with Lubuntu. Check out the 14.04 Post. I used Virt-Manager/KVM instead of Virtualbox for the 16.04 test. Extras: Testing Notes, Spreadsheet

Ubuntu 14.04 LiveCD Memory Usage Compared

Bryan Quigley — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 02:23:08 GMT

I did a comparison when 14.04 was first released on the memory usage of different Ubuntu flavors. Some takeaways:

Lubuntu has zRam (automatically compress memory to save space) enabled by default making it hands down the most usable version with low-memory. It's the only flavor to have it enabled on the LiveCD.
The real cost of 64 vs 32 bit is usually only 128 MB.
Lubuntu (32-bit) still boots with just 160 MB of RAM!
The Ubuntu kernel can't boot with only 128 MB of RAM.

All testing was done in virtual machines (Virtualbox) and obviously with different hardware you're results will vary. You can infer some of my methodology from the notes below. This was done months ago and I don't remember all of the details. The results may have changed with software updates, especially to Firefox. S preadsheet Raw testing notes

>Memory is to hard to measure

Bryan Quigley — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:45:00 GMT

>Inspired from the comment "It saves zero memory" from here
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/upstart/+bug/501241

I've been trying to keep my eye on Ubuntu's memory usage for some time now, but there has never been a great way to measure memory usage. Here is an alternate memory tracking idea.. Don't bother trying to observe it directly. These are the steps I followed to prove that removing tty2-tty6 will save us more than zero memory.

Figure out how much your computer (when booting off of a liveUSB in my case) needs to boot, open a terminal, and run free -m with using almost no swap.

[make sure the computer has a swap partition, or else this won't work]

Do this by booting the kernel with different mem=???M options. And try getting swap close to zero (see it with free -m), but still in positive territory by a few. Mine was mem=450M, and swap used was 3 M
Then make your changes, in my case rm /etc/init/tty[2-6]
Reboot with the same kernel option (mem=450M), run the terminal, run free -m and rejoice in the lack of swap used.

Why does this prove my point?
It gets around the memory measuring difficulties and says, "If we don't do X, will the system decide it doesn't need to activate swap?"

>Memory Usage on Intrepid

Bryan Quigley — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 00:51:00 GMT

>Just on Boot (livecds), Comparing to Previous Releases

	7.10	8.04.1	8.10 9/30
32 bit	146	154.1	162.5
64 bit	212.9	237.6	238.4

Top 4 Applications on boot and their memory usage 32 vs 64 bit (8.10 9/30)

Top 4 (Initial Boot)	32	64
nautilus	17.7	22.9
Gnome-system-monitor	7.7	10.9
Gnome-panel	7.2	10.1
python	5.5	9

Some Common Applications and their memory usage 32 vs 64 bit (8.10 9/30)

	32	64
Firefox	22.7	34.7
Gimp	18.3	27.1
OOWriter (.bin)	17.6	24.1
Totem	12.6	15.6
Rhythmbox	15.6	23.8
Total (of those apps)	118.8	189.3

All numbers from gnome-system-monitor. Is there any project to track Ubuntu (and it's applications) memory usage/performace over releases? Any interest in creating one?

Memory Usage 64 bit vs 32 bit on Ubuntu 8.04.1

Bryan Quigley — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:29:00 GMT

*Corrected mistake, thanks Martin. I have previously posted about memory usage on 7.10. All tests were done with an Ubuntu LiveCD on the same machine for both 7.10 and 8.04.1. A network card may have changed between 7.10 and 8.04.1. Applications used were Firefox, OpenOffice.org Writer, Rhythmbox, Totem and Gimp. All values copied out of Gnome System Monitor. Comparing Ubuntu 8.04.1 64 to 32

	32 bit	64 bit	Difference
Initial Boot	154.1	237.6	83.5
With Apps Open	262.7	395.7	133

I used the Phoronix Test Suite to attempt to get an idea of how ram access is changed from 32 bit to 64 bit. I was hoping to find a benefit for using 64 bit. I performed a very small test and did not find the benefit (in fact 64 bit was slighly slower). Results below: Note: This was a very very small test. Comparing 7.10 to 8.04.1, Initial Boot Only

	7.10	8.04.1	Difference
32 bit	146.0	154.1	+8.1
64 bit	212.9	237.6	+24.7