antiX-19 ps_mem.py

[Member linuxdaddy]

I think that those that still want to be lean and mean can
still do it without too much effort in 19.
Just for fun 🙂
This is 32-bit icewm-rox with taskbar icons and wifi running on
real low ram usage still. I stripped the xservers and firmware
that it don’t need on this setup.

Attachments:

1. 

   19b1lean32bit.png
   

Normal == 🙂
depends on the surrounding crowd ?!

[Member PPC]

Nods, I already noticed (and commented) on how low the ram usage on antiX19B1, 32 bits was on my virtual box… Even below the values you show…
If you don’t use a printer you could kill cupsd, if you don’t use a scanner saned, etc.
The best review I can give antiX, is- even if you have a crappy ancient computer with 500mb of RAM, if you use antiX, you can run a modern browser and browse the net almost like you have a brand new computer! (well, opening one or two tabs at a time 🙂 )

Not related to the subject (and in a humorous note): your window decoration almost made me want to close my eyes when I clicked the picture 🙂 There’s so many things going on on those window buttons! It’s like, for example, the minimize button says: “right click here to send this window to the task bar”. Thank god (or the theme’s creators) there are themes available for all possible tastes!

P.

[Member BobC]

Hmmmm, that’s the metal2 theme. I like it even better with the clean look, but it does anything I want. Nice numbers. And anytime you want 5.4 mb more you can remove volumeicon from startup, and add an Alsamixer icon to the toolbar to replace it.

So, Linuxdaddy, tell us how you identified and stripped out the unneeded xservers and firmware? I need that too…

[Member skidoo]

If you visit synaptic and search “xserver-xorg”, the click “Installed version” column header to SortBy, you can see that antiX preinstalls a wide range of drivers. On any given machine, most of those drivers are unneeded, are irrelevent to the machine’s hardware components (MGA display driver, cirrus display driver, ELOgraphics display driver….)

Right after post this, I noticed that linuxdaddy explained howto (plus screenshots) in another topic:
removing-drivers-to-trim-memory-usage/

Search again in synaptic for firmware ~~ removal of the extraneous preinstalled items does free up considerable space (80-90Mb) and reduces toram overhead. Also, the and size of the linuxfs file will be smaller (how much? I’ve never checked) when you perform a remaster operation.

If the system is a desktop with permanent enthernet connection, and you’re performing full backups and rotating 10 most recent backup sets… removal of the unneeded wifi stuffs can save half a gig of space (or so) on the backup drive.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by skidoo.

[Member linuxdaddy]

The result can really help with low spec machines.

screenshot 1 — while playing poorman radio and aumix and terminal ~72mb
screenshot 2 — screenshot 1 plus palemoon posting this. ~263mb

This is on a presario-2200 celeron-m 1.4ghz with 512mb ram laptop

Attachments:

1. 

   19b1slim_1.png
   

2. 

   memusage19b1.png
   

Normal == 🙂
depends on the surrounding crowd ?!

[Member seaken64]

Do you think I can get v19 down closer to 50Mb on initial boot/idle? I am able to do that with v16 and v17 by choosing one of the minimum window managers. I run v16 and v17 on a couple machines with 256Mb of RAM. Can browse a little using NetSurf or Dillo. But not really a great experience trying Palemoon or SeaMonkey. I use those machines for mostly text based stuff anyway. Although Cantata runs good.

I did some tests in a VM today. Here’s what I get at initial boot without making any changes such as you highlight here – just straight boot from installed iso. I did change the screen resolution to 1680×1050.

from ps_mem.py
v19b1-32bit = 143
v19bi-64bit = 197
v17.4.1-32bit = 119
v17.4.1-64bit = 161
MX18.3-32bit = 286
MX18.3-64bit = 348
Q4OS2.7TDE32 = 169 HTOP
Q4OS2.7TDE64 = 244 HTOP

v19 weighs in more than v17 in general. MX and Q4OS for comparison of XFCE and TDE desktops.

Seaken64

[Member skidoo]

The antiX FAQ/docs available via hyperlinks in the forum header navbar explain some boot options (cheat codes) you can apply, toward suppressing autostart of various services (daemons). These are useful when livebooting from CD.

The command “sysv-rc-conf” enables you to see which services are set to autostart for each runlevel.
(runlevel 5 is for “upon booting I want to the system to proceed to SLiM login and desktop session”)
You can (should) switch off unneeded services. If you are running a system with persistence enabled (or have permanently installed the O/S) your new selections will be reapplied (without use of boot cheat codes) during future boot sessions.

sudo service –status-all
will show you which services are currently running. Some of the currently running services are items which were autostarted during boot, others may have been manually or programmatically started during the course of your desktop session.

Via the command “sudo htop”
(or maybe on stock antiX, sudo isn’t required to launch htop?)
you can observe how much memory/cpu is attributable to each process or service.
Tip: pressing F6 while viewing htop will display a column SortBy chooser.

You can decide whether it is worthwhile to switch off a running, but unneeded, ftp server or CUPS server or…

Do you think I can get v19 down closer to 50Mb

I’m unsure, as we all must be, until v19 final is released.
Wait, hehe, okay I get it ~~ you’re teasing: How long is a future piece of string?

[Member PPC]

BobC wrote:

And anytime you want 5.4 mb more you can remove volumeicon from startup, and add an Alsamixer icon to the toolbar to replace it.

A bit off topic:

I also use that little trick- when my RAM is low, I simply close volumeicon. I fiddled with having a quick launch button to call a volume mixer, but ended up opting to, when I want to change my volume, simply do a Menu- Run -“volumeicon”.
For me about 5 mb of RAM is a considerable percentage of my available memory…

P.S. – I later noticed which theme was used in the screenshot. I’m glad at least some people like it, that’s the beauty of opensource software, and antiX in particular- there’s something for everyone. In my particular case, I use icons provided OOTB in antiX 19A1 to make JWM window decorations look almost like the default MX linux ones…- at first I didn’t like them very much but they grew on me and I got used to them.- my antiX looks almost like MX and runs on way less than MX’s idle RAM, about a third of it).

P.

[Member macondo]

PPC wrote:

BobC wrote:

And anytime you want 5.4 mb more you can remove volumeicon from startup, and add an Alsamixer icon to the toolbar to replace it.

A bit off topic:

I also use that little trick- when my RAM is low, I simply close volumeicon. I fiddled with having a quick launch button to call a volume mixer, but ended up opting to, when I want to change my volume, simply do a Menu- Run -“volumeicon”.
For me about 5 mb of RAM is a considerable percentage of my available memory…

P.

I knock off the volume icon (5 MB RAM) and that slim weighs as much as the whole icewm wm. I use keybindings for my volume:

My .icewm/keys file:

key “F1” lxterminal
key “F2” xfe
key “Ctrl+f” firefox
key “Ctrl+g” google-chrome-stable
key “Ctrl+w” waterfox
key “F7” mirage
key “F8” hexchat
key “Print” lxqterminal -e scrot -cd 10

#Sound
key “Ctrl+Down” amixer -q set Master 9%- # lower volume
key “Ctrl+Up” amixer -q set Master 9%+ # raise volume

By pressin the Control key and the Down arrow, lowers the volume, and Ctrl+Up arrow key, the opposite, saves me 5 megs ram, if only i can eliminate slim and go back to startx, another 5 megs.

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by macondo.

[Member macondo]

PPC wrote:

BobC wrote:

And anytime you want 5.4 mb more you can remove volumeicon from startup, and add an Alsamixer icon to the toolbar to replace it.

A bit off topic:

I also use that little trick- when my RAM is low, I simply close volumeicon. I fiddled with having a quick launch button to call a volume mixer, but ended up opting to, when I want to change my volume, simply do a Menu- Run -“volumeicon”.
For me about 5 mb of RAM is a considerable percentage of my available memory…
P.

I control the volume with the control key + the down and up keys, I got them in my .icewm/keys:

key “F1” lxterminal
key “F2” xfe
key “Ctrl+f” firefox
key “Ctrl+g” google-chrome-stable
key “Ctrl+w” waterfox
key “F7” mirage
key “F8” hexchat
key “Print” lxterminal -e scrot -cd 10

#Sound
key “Ctrl+Down” amixer -q set Master 9%- # lower volume
key “Ctrl+Up” amixer -q set Master 9%+ # raise volume

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by macondo.

[Member BobC]

I have my multimedia keys mapped as well, and for laptops thats fine, but these days most newbie users coming from windoze are used to finding icons for wifi and volume in the toolbar so they don’t have to remember the keys.

Antix standard keys for volume are ctrl+alt / and * so i leave those alone as they should be the same for all of the desktop window managers supported.

You are lucky, slin is taking 34 mb in its default configuration on my I7. I am working on reducing that somehow.

[Member macondo]

BobC wrote:

I have my multimedia keys mapped as well, and for laptops thats fine, but these days most newbie users coming from windoze are used to finding icons for wifi and volume in the toolbar so they don’t have to remember the keys.

Antix standard keys for volume are ctrl+alt / and * so i leave those alone as they should be the same for all of the desktop window managers supported.

You are lucky, slin is taking 34 mb in its default configuration on my I7. I am working on reducing that somehow.

Why should we cater to the windoze crowds, shouldn’t they learn from us?
Linux is becoming windows?
that Slim takes as much ram as IceWM itself (5 megs ram) and for what? you could put the info in .xinitrc and startx…

• This reply was modified 5 months, 3 weeks ago by macondo.

[Member macondo]

My bad, Slim is like 14 and Conky is 5

[Member BobC]

Macondo, If things don’t work in ways that are easy and obvious, those people end up asking questions about how to do things, or get frustrated, thinking Linux is hard.

I work on Windoze all day every day and don’t get to choose what OS I use, so I like to have the keys I press do the same things on my Linux system as well if possible

Its better to have things work intuitively so that what you might guess would work, does work and all is well.

Could you tell me how to eliminate slim? That would certainly help with the memory footprint on my machines. I wonder if it would break anything else?

[Member macondo]

Gotcha!

[Author]

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