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It's funny you have concerns with Windows using too much memory at idle, I actually have no idea how much memory my daily-driver Ubuntu install uses at baseline

It's funny you have concerns with Windows using too much memory at idle, I actually have no idea how much memory my daily-driver Ubuntu install uses at baseline, but my #1 issue with desktop Linux is how badly it behaves when low on free memory. Windows and MacOS will at least warn/prompt you to kill programs. On Linux, by default....the mouse just stops moving and you can't do anything. You can fiddle with settings and install tools like earlyoom to mitigate it, but the default behavior is insanely bad for a desktop OS. Despite having 32GB of RAM I still run into it occasionally and it drives me nuts.

doublepg23 5y ago
Fedora now handles this much better by having systemd-oomd by default now https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd
- addicted 5y ago
  The more I am using Linux the more I wish I had gone with Fedora for my personal desktop when I was forced to switch from Windows to Linux a couple of months ago (forced by hardware issues with an unused onboard video controller which I can set Linux to fully ignore but sends Windows in an infinite reboot loop). Don’t get me wrong. Out of the Windows, Mac and Ubuntu machines I have, the Ubuntu one is still my favorite (especially since switching from 20.04 LTS to 20.10) but Fedora is doing things so much more along the lines of what I want. It’s more cutting edge but still very stable and well tested. It doesn’t force snaps onto me. I’d much rather install flatpak software. And it has a cleaner Gnome interface. Even though I kind of like the Ubuntu sidebar dock, it’s not worth all the other awkward behaviors with Ubuntu trying to override Gnome (for example, the existence of the Ubuntu Software store really annoys me since it doesn’t support Flatpak and simply seems to run a lot worse than the Gnome software store that I also have installed).
  - doublepg23 5y ago
    Indeed, I think I'm going to make the jump to Fedora from 20.04. Really hard decision too as I've been an Ubuntu guy for the majority of my computing life. Agree on all points as well - Vanilla GNOME > Unity, Flatpaks > Snaps. The Snap Store is just GNOME Software with some plugins/tweaks FWIW, this is changing (has changed?) soon though. I learned this by investigating a memory leak https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I think this is due to memory overcommitting on Linux. It can actually be turned off. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more-memory-than-there-exists-using-malloc#19750809 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more... But I like that about FreeBSD, it just says no when you try to allocate more memory than you have (including swap!)
aulin 5y ago
Get a good amount of swap on ssd, the default 2GB on most distros is not nearly enough to save you when you really need swapping. IIRC you can even make it sparse to not occupy disk space when you're not using it.
- lillecarl 5y ago
  > IIRC you can even make it sparse to not occupy disk space when you're not using it. While this sounds great, not allocating storage for swap means either you'll have that space unallocated or you won't have any swap because your system is full. Administrative overhead is simpler though, and sparse files don't have any performance overhead in later kernels (Citation needed, read somewhere on some wiki)
  - aulin 5y ago
    I have a couple of sparse swap files handy for when I know I'll need them. And it happens with some very specific and predictable use cases. Usually it's when I need to load some big timeseries csv files from pandas and parse a datetime index. Or when I need to process big images. It's useful to be able to attach some additional swap when you need it and drop it afterwards. For everyday use I never even exceed 16GBs... Guess everyone has different needs, but there is no way it swaps over 32GB for normal applications, even taking into account overcommitting.
    - lillecarl 5y ago
      Where do you put the swap? Do you move data off of your drive(s) to make space for the swap?
      - aulin 5y ago
        I usually have either free space or some cruft I can throw away if I really need to free some.
kaba0 5y ago
Enable zram. It does make a huge difference on lower RAM devices (I have 8G in my laptop)

doublepg23 5y ago

Fedora now handles this much better by having systemd-oomd by default now https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/EnableSystemdOomd

addicted 5y ago
The more I am using Linux the more I wish I had gone with Fedora for my personal desktop when I was forced to switch from Windows to Linux a couple of months ago (forced by hardware issues with an unused onboard video controller which I can set Linux to fully ignore but sends Windows in an infinite reboot loop). Don’t get me wrong. Out of the Windows, Mac and Ubuntu machines I have, the Ubuntu one is still my favorite (especially since switching from 20.04 LTS to 20.10) but Fedora is doing things so much more along the lines of what I want. It’s more cutting edge but still very stable and well tested. It doesn’t force snaps onto me. I’d much rather install flatpak software. And it has a cleaner Gnome interface. Even though I kind of like the Ubuntu sidebar dock, it’s not worth all the other awkward behaviors with Ubuntu trying to override Gnome (for example, the existence of the Ubuntu Software store really annoys me since it doesn’t support Flatpak and simply seems to run a lot worse than the Gnome software store that I also have installed).
- doublepg23 5y ago
  Indeed, I think I'm going to make the jump to Fedora from 20.04. Really hard decision too as I've been an Ubuntu guy for the majority of my computing life. Agree on all points as well - Vanilla GNOME > Unity, Flatpaks > Snaps. The Snap Store is just GNOME Software with some plugins/tweaks FWIW, this is changing (has changed?) soon though. I learned this by investigating a memory leak https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942 https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-software/-/issues/942

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I think this is due to memory overcommitting on Linux. It can actually be turned off. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more-memory-than-there-exists-using-malloc#19750809 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19750796/allocating-more... But I like that about FreeBSD, it just says no when you try to allocate more memory than you have (including swap!)

aulin 5y ago

Get a good amount of swap on ssd, the default 2GB on most distros is not nearly enough to save you when you really need swapping. IIRC you can even make it sparse to not occupy disk space when you're not using it.

lillecarl 5y ago
> IIRC you can even make it sparse to not occupy disk space when you're not using it. While this sounds great, not allocating storage for swap means either you'll have that space unallocated or you won't have any swap because your system is full. Administrative overhead is simpler though, and sparse files don't have any performance overhead in later kernels (Citation needed, read somewhere on some wiki)
- aulin 5y ago
  I have a couple of sparse swap files handy for when I know I'll need them. And it happens with some very specific and predictable use cases. Usually it's when I need to load some big timeseries csv files from pandas and parse a datetime index. Or when I need to process big images. It's useful to be able to attach some additional swap when you need it and drop it afterwards. For everyday use I never even exceed 16GBs... Guess everyone has different needs, but there is no way it swaps over 32GB for normal applications, even taking into account overcommitting.
  - lillecarl 5y ago
    Where do you put the swap? Do you move data off of your drive(s) to make space for the swap?
    - aulin 5y ago
      I usually have either free space or some cruft I can throw away if I really need to free some.

kaba0 5y ago

Enable zram. It does make a huge difference on lower RAM devices (I have 8G in my laptop)