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A lack of physical memory can severely hamper Linux® performance. In this article, learn how to accurately measure the amount of memory your Linux system uses. You also get practical advice on reducing your memory requirements using an Ubuntu system as an example.
A much-touted benefit of Linux is that it is more efficient than Microsoft® Windows®, and will therefore perform better on less than cutting-edge hardware. This performance makes Linux a very attractive upgrade for the many people who have old Windows 98-era boxes still sitting around that are no longer being treated to the latest and greatest software (particularly security patches).
The truth of the matter, however, is that while the Linux kernel can still be configured to be reasonably small and efficient, as new computers have increased in power, many Linux desktop environments (such as KDE and GNOME) have added lots of features. Consequently, the default install of most distributions offer a less than stellar level of performance when installed on older hardware. The same is true of many modern applications also -- Web browsers such as Firefox and office suites such as OpenOffice are fully featured, but trying to run them on a machine with 128MB of RAM can be a painful experience!
So what is the answer? Throw away all of your old hardware and upgrade? Install a Linux distribution from circa 1995? (If you decide to go that route, I recall having a good experience with Linux-FT.)
Never fear: as those in the Linux community have known for years, a great strength (some would say the great strength) of the Linux kernel and Linux distributions in general lies in their ability to be customized. This article delves into how you can tailor your Linux systems for better performance on modest hardware.
This article provides some tips for making the most out of older hardware with limited memory. I liked the added feature of comparing memory requirements of some popular browsers, office suites, and instant messaging clients. Memory hogs rise to the top! :-)
I liked learning about Exmap (http://www.berthels.co.uk/exmap/). The article describes how this tool shows memory usage for all apps on the system, taking into consideration their use of shared libraries. I tried it and it opened my eyes about a few of the apps I use regularly.
Btw, you can use pmap (comes standard in procps) to give you info on writable pages in use. It's easier than running awk on the /proc/(pid)/maps file, and useful when doing embedded development as it's those writable pages that count against you - the rest can be loaded back in from the fs but you hit the wall with writable pages.
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