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From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Linux doesn't seem to manage memory very well
Date: Fri, 3 May 2024 07:02:34 +0100
Organization: A little, after lunch
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On 03/05/2024 00:23, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
> Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:
>> On 2024-05-02 16:06, James Harris wrote:
>>>
>>> Yes, I am (at least tentatively) blaming Linux but not for the problem
>>> you think. I wouldn't expect Linux to prevent programs from gobbling up
>>> memory but I would expect it to manage memory hogs more gracefully than
>>> it does. IME Windows handles the same situation better - and that may be
>>> down to the different designs of their paging systems.
>>>
>>> Don't get me wrong. I much prefer Linux to Windows and have often seen
>>> Windows get into a worse situation under different circumstances. But
>>> for page management ISTM that the design of Linux's paging subsystem may
>>> not be the best.
>>
>> You can configure Linux to crash the application that is behaving badly
>> by grabbing all the memory. It is up to you, the boss.
>>
>> The philosophy is not to nanny care for you. It does what you asked.
>> More memory? Yes sir. Till death does us part. Your orders will be obeyed.
>>
>> :-)
> 
> I didn't know there was an option not to have it do that (via the
> Out Of Memory Reaper). It seems the alternatives are to reboot or
> risk the kernel crashing, so your description seems about right.
> 
> https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/it-infrastructure/dev-oom-killer.html
> 
> The OP has noted now that the process that consumes their RAM is
> Chrome or Firefox. I've not seen a detailed description of why it
> happens, but I've long noted that Firefox seems to expand its RAM
> usage to the available space, but different from a memory leak in
> that it usually leaves a certain amount free. I assume that this
> in intended behaviour. I run current Firefox on a PC with 2GB RAM
> and I don't have it getting killed by the kernel, nor do I have
> problems with kernel crashes/reboots. I've also tried running
> recent Firefox on a PC with 512MB RAM and noticed that it performs
> much worse than with 2GB RAM, slowing down to a crawl while loading
> some websites, suggesting that it really does need more RAM in that
> case.
> 
> I don't use web browsers to play video. If you're streaming super
> high resolution video through your browser with the latest and
> greatest compression algorithms, then it probably has the right
> to chew up a lot of RAM.
> 
I use browsers to play videos. RAM usage is not massive. CPU usage is.

What chews memory are *commercial* websites loaded with (deliberately) 
buggy javaScript that cause javaScript engines to go into meltdown. How 
that is handled is browser dependent.

Ublock Origin helps massively, but is not a complete answer.
What is a massive help at leats in Mint Mate is the System Monitor 
widget that I keep in the task bar permanently displaying CPU, RAM and 
Network usage as teeny graphs.
It is very easy to see when memory is all grabbed by a process rather 
than simply cache
And monitor how much gets released when you close a website page.

It is configurable to do what htop, top and atop do in a much simpler 
way for GUI users
Right now, it looks like Thunderbird is my biggest surprise at almost a 
gigabyte?

I will close it and reopen it. It shouldnt be THAT heavy on memory.


-- 
“when things get difficult you just have to lie”

― Jean Claud Jüncker