manyroads
Since your hardware and memory consumption usage is actually irrelevant to this discussion, let me provide you consistent data from my development platform.
From htop you will see all the ‘bloat’ I have added as part of the 340M running on the iceWM development desktop I am using. (see htop screenshot below: icewm-homogenized-htop.png)
By way of comparison, let’s analyze what we have using a consistent data base. I will use my development platform and start from the bottom build to show where the system’s memory use grows. Keep in mind everything I will add is optional (because I have not removed any of the base antiX system).
First let’s look at a naked base space-icewm from which my blended system is built (iceWM with SpaceFM).
— space-icewm with only the icewm panel running (no add-ons beyond SpaceFM) idles at 230MB on my VB machine
Next:
— when I add conky memory consumption increases to: 240MB
Then if I add either of the following compositors to the mix on the base space-icewm platform I get:
— 313MB of memory consumed when compton is added (screenshot included below: with compton.png)
— 300MB of memory consumed if xcompmgr is used instead of compton
Thus the remaining ~27MB of memory spent on my “current” base platform provides the following services:
— a semantic launcher/ search tool (kupfer)
— tint2 to run and manage the task bar,
— jgmenu (an xfce whisker-like menu with internal searching)
— a weather app
— a calendar popup
First let me make clear that my objective is NOT to build the leanest machine in the world. It is rather to build a Desktop that is functional for a typical laptop user, nice to look at (following reasonably common user interface techniques/ approaches), consumes computer resources frugally, is easily tailored, and provides a good balance of features to cost. My targeted hardware platform is a typical 5-10 year old laptop. To that end, I assume about 2GB of memory, 100GB of disk, and 1366×768 screen. Thus to my mind the use of let’s say 400/2048 (~20%) of memory seems reasonable and appropriate (and note, my actual current use is close to 340MB of memory, not 400MB).
If you think that my use of about 30MB of memory is wasteful, then by all means follow your heart and don’t use what I build. There is absolutely no requirement that you (or anyone) use my work. If you can provide a better result offering the same or equivalent features, I encourage you to do so. Everyone will benefit.
- This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by manyroads.
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Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm-i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
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