Tricks for reducing RAM use

[manyroads]

Nothing serious but... over the years, I have noticed that one of MX/antiX community's more popular activities is working/attempting to reduce memory (RAM) use. There are numerous common tricks applied to achieving that objective. I'll start by offering a couple of items (perhaps a bit less typical or common) that work for me including:

1. I make every effort to use small wallpapers (under 1 MB). Each wallpaper consumes a pretty easily identified amount of RAM. 1 MB picture uses a little more than 1MB of RAM.
2. Open fewer browser tabs. I find that typical 'open' browser tabs consume anywhere from 200 to 500 MB of RAM.
3. I use xcompmgr as my compositor. It runs in about 20% less than some of the more 'modern' compositors. (Yes it also does less... but I run using dwm, so that's okay with me.)
4. I keep a clean (meaning totally non-existent Desktop). I have conky visible but as a single image across all my workspaces (9 of them). I use this setting for that in conky:

Code: Select all

conky.config = {
own_window = true,
own_window_type = 'override',

5. Whenever possible I run systemd-free. That seems to save about 20% when compared to an identically configured systemd setup.
6. I turn off every unused service (run as few services as possible). They start 'plenty fast' from ground zero for me (e.g. printers, blue tooth, mtp, etc.)
7. I close any unused apps. No need have an app idle in the queue, if I'm not going to use it right away. Yep, I close & restart frequently.
8. Adblock... I adblock everything I can. Those little buggers (ads) are not only annoying but they burn network bandwidth, screen space, and electricity.

So what tricks might you like?

[seaken64]

Thank you manyroads. I use a lot of the same techniques. Especially removing unused services. I also choose to use programs that tend to use less memory when I can. For example, SeaMonkey or Palemoon instead of stock Firefox, and SMTube instead of the browser for Youtube, etc.

Seaken64

[manyroads]

I, also, like using low resource apps like nnn, ranger (file managers); sxiv & feh (image viewers) ; st (one of my favorites, the terminal from suckless).... But for me the biggie is dwm; I simply marvel at what it does in 2000 lines of code. I'm watching another marvelous window manager being developed by Nate Maia (archlabs) it's called yaxwm (Yet Another X Windows Manager).

[anticapitalista]

I'll be provocative here: Don't use X!
You'll be surprised what you can do without X(org).
Obviously, there are lots of things you can't do.
But, you can use an old laptop to play radio/audio/video, check your emails, do basic web browsing without the 'bloat' of X.

[manyroads]

So that begs a question... will wayland be better?

[seaken64]

Anti, you mean not use a GUI? Console only?

I do that on some of my old P-II and P-III machines. It reminds me of my DOS days. And I am impressed with what can be done without an X windows environment. But if I'm honest I preferred DOS in that paradigm. But I was never a coder. I liked using DOS for spreadsheets, word processing, and databases. Linus doesn't do so well in that space without X.

Seaken64

[anticapitalista]

Anti, you mean not use a GUI? Console only?

I do that on some of my old P-II and P-III machines. It reminds me of my DOS days. And I am impressed with what can be done without an X windows environment. But if I'm honest I preferred DOS in that paradigm. But I was never a coder. I liked using DOS for spreadsheets, word processing, and databases. Linus doesn't do so well in that space without X.

Seaken64

Yes, no X windws - console only.

[rasat]

There is another "RAM" computer users rarely speak about. The usage of our own brain memory, let's call it "BRAM". What it takes to get things done. To remember the sequence of clicks, a combination of keyboard or terminal commands, and finding files. Here is where the different window managers and desktops were invented. Linux started with low RAM and high BRAM and moved toward the reverse.

[oops]

I'll be provocative here: Don't use X!
...

Good trick Manyroads , and to also be provocative like Anticapitalista ... Use an old kernel (and custom modules kernel) and a X86 system instead amd64 ( 30% less ram at least)

[manyroads]

@rasat... following on your BRAM concept, that can be easily automated using simple keybindings. I personally like to use conky (a lá #! style) to remind me of crucial keybinds. They are MUCH faster (and more precise) and often use less RAM than GUIs.