MX-14 Review

[Adrian]

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested. We didn't use any magic pixie dust when compiling the desktop. I can see we have a newer kernel than those other distros, maybe that's it, but it's amazing how some of them use 2.5 times as much to just run the desktop. I don't believe MX is running any fewer services at startup than the others, and our compiler supposedly doesn't have the optimization features that gcc 4.8 advertises.

I wonder about this too, did he compare against 64bit distros? I don't think that would completely explain the difference... would it?

[BitJam]

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

For example, last night I figured out how to save about 3 Meg of RAM on the Live system. I also measured the extra RAM usage if we add background console images (splash). At 1024x768 it costs 4 Meg and at 1280x1024 it costs 5 Meg. Of course there are probably ways to do it that consume more RAM but that is as small as I could get it (so far). We fight for every Meg we can get. We fight the same way to keep the boot fast and to keep the size of the .iso small. Where ever possible, we'll fight dirty. Usually it just involves making lots of measurements and trying lots of different things. I might be in contention for the world's record for the most number of times booting VirtualBox. I wore out a computer because I booted it so much.

[Gaer Boy]

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

[Richard]

@Gaer Boy,
Yes. You have the freedom to add those things and still have a small footprint
because of the effort expended to keep the basics to a minimum.

I used Mepis running IceWM until they changed to Ubuntu, then I strayed.
Tried to use antiX over the years but had problems installing on my hardware
and couldn't get used to IceWM after discovering Xfce4. :)

...and now, MX-14 offers, to me, the best of both, with Xfce4.

[joany]

And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

I wouldn't say we spoil it. It's wonderful that AntiX and MX-14 are small OOTB. But why sweat it if you have lots of memory to play with?

[DBeckett]

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

And then we spoil it by adding things! I can't get my desktop below 300MB (180MB on the netbook). With my minimum Firefox, Thunderbird, Dolphin & KMyMoney running, the desktop uses about 650 MB. I'm not complaining - that's only 7%.

But that's the key, at least the way I see it. Start with a gold-plated, fast, nimble, and very capable core that stands tall on its own without any cruft or useless gingerbread. That's MX. Then the user can build whatever he/she wants on top of that according to choices made and resources available. It's a win/win.

[DBeckett]

I'm curious as to how MX 14 ends up using less RAM then every other XFCE desktop that reviewer tested.

Blood, sweat, and tears. For years, we've been sweating the small stuff to keep antiX as small and as fast as possible. Most of that carried over to MX-14.

Based on my time trying to fit code written in Assembly into very small spaces, I suspect you enjoy the challenge.

[NGIB]

When I started coding in the mid-80s, every byte was precious as some folks didn't even have a hard drive. Writing in assembler to cut the code down to the smallest possible was the rule of the day. I remember the module I wrote in assembler to find out what kind of video card the system had so the software could adjust - it was more complex than the software. It was fun when I was young...

[uncle mark]

It was fun when I was young...

Now you sound like my wife...

[timkb4cq]

When I started coding in the mid-80s, every byte was precious as some folks didn't even have a hard drive. Writing in assembler to cut the code down to the smallest possible was the rule of the day.

My first coding was in 1973 (in High School) on a PDP-8e with 8kb core memory shared between 4 teletype terminals. Punched paper tape for storage. Every byte counted. Those of us who learned in that era seem to take resource usage into account more than later generations who had megabytes or gigabytes to play with rather than kilobytes.
I'm not dissing those programmers - different circumstances lead to different emphases. And the Arduino & similar systems have reintroduced coders to dealing with resource constraints.