On Wed, Apr 09, 2003 at 11:10:05AM +0200, Karolina Lindqvist wrote: > onsdagen den 9 april 2003 09.22 skrev Daniel Stone: > > Not to mention 64mb. > > Well, where I live, 128MB appears to be the smallest size sold in common > shops. Maybe in, say, DDR. > > The point is that your figures of 256mb are extremely irresponsible, > > considering users respect you somewhat for your packaging, and I'd > > prefer you either checked your facts with a program you knew not to be > > incorrect, or just left it alone. It runs fine on anything from 64mb > > upwards, and even on 48mb, if you tune it a bit. > > If you know how to "tune" the system to run in 48MB, you don't need any > recommendations. If you don't know anything, you might need recommendations. > Linux automatically uses spare memory for disk caching, so being starved on > RAM not only causes swapping to disk of virtual memory, it also reduces the > disk cache which increases disk traffic. So RAM starvation reduces > performance a lot. It's pretty simple - there's even a HOWTO around. > I have no clue about what you do in 128MB, but using the computer for me means > more than just starting KDE, and checking that it works. It might involve > using some memory hungry program like Open Office (start office), surfing the > web (which might require netscape), and then some picture handling for > creating web pages. Everything common task that many expect to be able to do. > And here I have not even mentioned compiling KDE programs. These programs > need their REM, in additional to what KDE already uses, adding up to the > requirement. All these activities benefits much more from enough RAM than a > fast processor. For me, it meant Konsole with a few tabs open, a couple of Konq sessions, a KWord session, and Mutt having a good go at a 40,000-mail Maildir. I don't see why you'd "need" OpenOffice or Mozilla. BTW, KGhostView posed no difficulties with huge PDFs, either. Not even image-laden ones, on my laptop. And, as someone pointed out, most of the RAM being "used" is actually just cache, so it's non-critical if it gets swapped out. > I might consider 192MB enough, but as it is hard to get 64MB memory chips, > there are often very few slots to put the memory in, and memory is so cheap, > then better go with 256MB from the beginning. Or to upgrade with 128MB from > whatever is there in the computer already. 64mb is plenty, IME. And the "tuning" amounts to little other than disabling what you don't need - nothing perplexing. I agree that memory is cheap, right. My box has 512mb of 333MHz DDR, soon to be 1gb. Problem is that people often don't have even $au60 to spare, or maybe are stuck with old boxes with older, more expensive RAM, or whatever. I was in that situation for quite a while. Or maybe they're saving to get a whole new machine, this time with DDR. 128mb to run any OS is stupid, 256 ridiculous. If your assertions were true, I'd be demanding KDE go straight back to the drawing board. However, the experience of everyone shows that it's certainly *not* true. gmemusage doth not a usage report make. -- Daniel Stone <daniel@raging.dropbear.id.au> <dstone@kde.org> KDE: Konquering a desktop near you - http://www.kde.org
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