4 ms·

I do most of my work on a laptop with 4GiB of memory (manufactured in 2009). Probably the last time I did anything dev related that meaningfully stressed the ma

I do most of my work on a laptop with 4GiB of memory (manufactured in 2009). Probably the last time I did anything dev related that meaningfully stressed the machine was when I decided to give android studio a shot. Just sitting there, with nothing else open, the machine was completely unusable. I cannot recall anything else I have done with the machine in it's lifetime that's been a real problem. This includes running firefox and chromium concurrently, plus a couple virtual machines .

laumars 9y ago
Like always when people start comparing system performance, there are so many variables at play (CPU make / model / age / cache / n cores, bus speed, RAM type, OS / distro / package versions / compiled flags, swap space, running daemons / services or other background processes, number of browser tabs and even the specific sites left open, etc etc).... But for me it's the Flash plugin container for Firefox that really does the damage when it comes to concurrency. A few Firefox tabs open running YouTube (or another video streaming service) and my fan already starts spinning up louder than a revving motorbike. If I have much more open aside Firefox then the system will just lock up without warning. I suspect Flash is thrashing both CPU and RAM though but it's consistent enough behaviour that I tend to avoid it rather than investing time debugging and fixing (though since it is Flash that kills it, I suspect any such "fix" would just be altering the behaviour of the softwares end user (ie me) anyway).
- Majora320 9y ago
  I thought YouTube used HTML5 video, not flash...
  - zenhack 9y ago
    It does. I also don't have flash installed, which probably helps. Can't remember the last time not having it caused a problem; good riddance.
  - laumars 9y ago
    To be honest what I really wanted to say was "porn sites" but instead picked a worksafe (and less accurate) example.
- laumars 9y ago
  I get modded down for the oddest reasons these days. I can't even fathom why anyone might disagree with this post.

laumars 9y ago

Like always when people start comparing system performance, there are so many variables at play (CPU make / model / age / cache / n cores, bus speed, RAM type, OS / distro / package versions / compiled flags, swap space, running daemons / services or other background processes, number of browser tabs and even the specific sites left open, etc etc).... But for me it's the Flash plugin container for Firefox that really does the damage when it comes to concurrency. A few Firefox tabs open running YouTube (or another video streaming service) and my fan already starts spinning up louder than a revving motorbike. If I have much more open aside Firefox then the system will just lock up without warning. I suspect Flash is thrashing both CPU and RAM though but it's consistent enough behaviour that I tend to avoid it rather than investing time debugging and fixing (though since it is Flash that kills it, I suspect any such "fix" would just be altering the behaviour of the softwares end user (ie me) anyway).

Majora320 9y ago
I thought YouTube used HTML5 video, not flash...
- zenhack 9y ago
  It does. I also don't have flash installed, which probably helps. Can't remember the last time not having it caused a problem; good riddance.
- laumars 9y ago
  To be honest what I really wanted to say was "porn sites" but instead picked a worksafe (and less accurate) example.
laumars 9y ago
I get modded down for the oddest reasons these days. I can't even fathom why anyone might disagree with this post.