10 ms·

Yesterday I stumbled upon a post here about a guy trying to use a Pi as his main machine for a couple of days, and one of his conclusions was that he needed 8GB

by htk 6y ago

Yesterday I stumbled upon a post here about a guy trying to use a Pi as his main machine for a couple of days, and one of his conclusions was that he needed 8GB of ram to run Chromium acceptably, and I thought, hardware evolved to these amazingly small and powerful machines but software is bloating faster. All this is to say that software such as Flow might be the way to go back to more performant ways of doing “essential” computing.

arexxbifs 6y ago
I used a Raspi 3B as my main desktop for a while a couple of years back. It worked fine for most things I wanted to do, except for web browsing. NetSurf was good enough for most things, but I had to use Chromium for online banking. It was slow, but it worked. Sure, 1 gig is a bit cramped these days but the problem in general are the web sites, not the browsers.
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  I'd say it's a vicious circle. Chrome folks look at real world performance and optimize for that. Web devs see their site performing better and add more shit until their dev machine is almost bogging down. Rinse and repeat.
  - entha_saava 6y ago
    Yeah it is mostly web devs being crap. No problem with sites like HN.
- stephen_g 6y ago
  I tried installing a modern Xubuntu desktop on a 3B+ a few weeks ago. You can hardly even open Chromium or Firefox these days (maybe with a lighter desktop it would be slightly better)...
  - arexxbifs 6y ago
    I think the best choice is still Raspbian. I was running Raspbian+Fvwm2 at the time.
c-smile 6y ago
For that matter Sciter is pretty happy to run (render HTML/CSS and executing scripts) on rPI https://sciter.com/raspberry-pi-4/ https://sciter.com/raspberry-pi-4/ So that's about architecture of the Chromium - multiple processes (not even threads) and IPC between them to render stuff.
vbezhenar 6y ago
I wonder did someone try to dissect where that Chrome memory is going to? I can run Intellij Idea: Java IDE, load project with thousands of files into it and it won't eat 8 GB. I understand that Chromium is maintained by extremely talented developers and all obvious improvements were made, so that memory usage is probably necessary. But I still wonder how is it possible. Gigabyte of RAM is a lot.
- rgrieselhuber 6y ago
  This topic always reminds me of the work of Paul Virilio, on how system design often (deliberately or not) impedes our own natural processing capabilities by slowing us down / wasting our time.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- thdrdt 6y ago
  Not an exact answer to your question but there are a lot of things taking more memory than you would think. Today websites contain high res images. Well, you might say, 800KB isn't much. But that is the compressed size. The bitmap data is way bigger. All this data has to be kept in memory. But yeah, 8GB is unbelievable. I have no clue why Chrome needs this.
- thePunisher 6y ago
  In short: caching, caching and caching.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  You can hit F12 in a chromium based browser and hit the memory tab and find out where all the RAM is going...
  - MauranKilom 6y ago
    Also works in FF.
  - pwdisswordfish2 6y ago
amelius 6y ago
All (browser) developers should be using a Pi as their main machine.
- bitwize 6y ago
  The W3C and the WHAT, too. I keep obsolete computers and phones around to test with.
- iforgotpassword 6y ago
  Yes, developers in general. Force them to use their own stuff on laptop HDDs, mounted via NFS. Gnome and KDE folks. Although I stopped using either of those so I don't care.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - toast0 6y ago
    Over remote X too, please. Doesn't have to be very remote (but you know, bonus points if it is)
    - mrlonglong 6y ago
      Me too. I'm absolutely dreading moving to Wayland for this reason since there are issues using it over the network.
nostrademons 6y ago
There was a meme when I was at Google (~2012) that went: "What would you do if you had 16GB of RAM?" "I'll tell you what I'd do with that. 2 Chrome tabs at the same time." (Superimposed over the scene from Office Space.) (On a more charitable note, I worked with the Chrome performance team on a few occasions. The reason for Chrome's massive memory requirements is that they make memory vs. CPU/performance/security tradeoffs on a regular basis, and usually make them against memory. For example, the reason you can have smooth animations in Chrome is because there are multiple in-memory representations of the layout and changing a CSS property relies on cached parsing/cascading/layout decisions and only needs a repaint on the GPU, using blocks of the page that have been pre-rendered into a texture. For another example, the multi-process architecture that gives each webpage isolation from another is a lot more RAM intensive than a shared-state architecture that could share common components, like say the object code from compiling shared JS libraries.)
- jmilloy 6y ago
  Would be a dream as a user to be able to choose between cpu-optimized or memory-optimized modes.
  - tinco 6y ago
    When would you ever not opt for a cpu optimized mode? Cpu's can't get faster, and you can always get more memory.
    - jabirali 6y ago
      A perhaps more useful tradeoff would be if one could disable a subset of CSS/JS with a simple switch in the settings, so e.g. transition animations are skipped but the webpage is otherwise readable. I think I have yet to see a webpage that uses animations in a way I enjoy, even when they’re smooth. (The same goes for most PowerPoint transitions and window manager animations...)
      - alpaca128 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mpweiher 6y ago
> but software is bloating faster This is called Wirth's Law: Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law
zdragnar 6y ago
That depends on what you're doing with it, I suppose- chromebooks typically don't have that much RAM and are usually sufficiently powerful for most any website. My wife uses one exclusively for YouTube, Netflix, facebook etc. Pretty much the only thing we've seen it stutter on is browsing very high res images taken with a high end camera off of a USB stick.

by htk 6y ago

arexxbifs 6y ago

I used a Raspi 3B as my main desktop for a while a couple of years back. It worked fine for most things I wanted to do, except for web browsing. NetSurf was good enough for most things, but I had to use Chromium for online banking. It was slow, but it worked. Sure, 1 gig is a bit cramped these days but the problem in general are the web sites, not the browsers.

iforgotpassword 6y ago
I'd say it's a vicious circle. Chrome folks look at real world performance and optimize for that. Web devs see their site performing better and add more shit until their dev machine is almost bogging down. Rinse and repeat.
- entha_saava 6y ago
  Yeah it is mostly web devs being crap. No problem with sites like HN.
stephen_g 6y ago
I tried installing a modern Xubuntu desktop on a 3B+ a few weeks ago. You can hardly even open Chromium or Firefox these days (maybe with a lighter desktop it would be slightly better)...
- arexxbifs 6y ago
  I think the best choice is still Raspbian. I was running Raspbian+Fvwm2 at the time.

c-smile 6y ago

For that matter Sciter is pretty happy to run (render HTML/CSS and executing scripts) on rPI https://sciter.com/raspberry-pi-4/ https://sciter.com/raspberry-pi-4/ So that's about architecture of the Chromium - multiple processes (not even threads) and IPC between them to render stuff.

vbezhenar 6y ago

I wonder did someone try to dissect where that Chrome memory is going to? I can run Intellij Idea: Java IDE, load project with thousands of files into it and it won't eat 8 GB. I understand that Chromium is maintained by extremely talented developers and all obvious improvements were made, so that memory usage is probably necessary. But I still wonder how is it possible. Gigabyte of RAM is a lot.

rgrieselhuber 6y ago
This topic always reminds me of the work of Paul Virilio, on how system design often (deliberately or not) impedes our own natural processing capabilities by slowing us down / wasting our time.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
thdrdt 6y ago
Not an exact answer to your question but there are a lot of things taking more memory than you would think. Today websites contain high res images. Well, you might say, 800KB isn't much. But that is the compressed size. The bitmap data is way bigger. All this data has to be kept in memory. But yeah, 8GB is unbelievable. I have no clue why Chrome needs this.
thePunisher 6y ago
In short: caching, caching and caching.
londons_explore 6y ago
You can hit F12 in a chromium based browser and hit the memory tab and find out where all the RAM is going...
- MauranKilom 6y ago
  Also works in FF.
- pwdisswordfish2 6y ago

amelius 6y ago

All (browser) developers should be using a Pi as their main machine.

bitwize 6y ago
The W3C and the WHAT, too. I keep obsolete computers and phones around to test with.
iforgotpassword 6y ago
Yes, developers in general. Force them to use their own stuff on laptop HDDs, mounted via NFS. Gnome and KDE folks. Although I stopped using either of those so I don't care.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- toast0 6y ago
  Over remote X too, please. Doesn't have to be very remote (but you know, bonus points if it is)
  - mrlonglong 6y ago
    Me too. I'm absolutely dreading moving to Wayland for this reason since there are issues using it over the network.

nostrademons 6y ago

There was a meme when I was at Google (~2012) that went: "What would you do if you had 16GB of RAM?" "I'll tell you what I'd do with that. 2 Chrome tabs at the same time." (Superimposed over the scene from Office Space.) (On a more charitable note, I worked with the Chrome performance team on a few occasions. The reason for Chrome's massive memory requirements is that they make memory vs. CPU/performance/security tradeoffs on a regular basis, and usually make them against memory. For example, the reason you can have smooth animations in Chrome is because there are multiple in-memory representations of the layout and changing a CSS property relies on cached parsing/cascading/layout decisions and only needs a repaint on the GPU, using blocks of the page that have been pre-rendered into a texture. For another example, the multi-process architecture that gives each webpage isolation from another is a lot more RAM intensive than a shared-state architecture that could share common components, like say the object code from compiling shared JS libraries.)

jmilloy 6y ago
Would be a dream as a user to be able to choose between cpu-optimized or memory-optimized modes.
- tinco 6y ago
  When would you ever not opt for a cpu optimized mode? Cpu's can't get faster, and you can always get more memory.
  - jabirali 6y ago
    A perhaps more useful tradeoff would be if one could disable a subset of CSS/JS with a simple switch in the settings, so e.g. transition animations are skipped but the webpage is otherwise readable. I think I have yet to see a webpage that uses animations in a way I enjoy, even when they’re smooth. (The same goes for most PowerPoint transitions and window manager animations...)
    - alpaca128 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mpweiher 6y ago

> but software is bloating faster This is called Wirth's Law: Software gets slower faster than hardware gets faster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law

zdragnar 6y ago

That depends on what you're doing with it, I suppose- chromebooks typically don't have that much RAM and are usually sufficiently powerful for most any website. My wife uses one exclusively for YouTube, Netflix, facebook etc. Pretty much the only thing we've seen it stutter on is browsing very high res images taken with a high end camera off of a USB stick.