Dennis wrote:
> Ron Hunter wrote:
>> Dennis wrote:
>>> clay wrote:
>>>> »Q« wrote:
>>>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their new
>>>>>> install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
>>>>>> nothing...
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
>>>>> What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
>>>>>
>>>>> [followup set to mozilla.general]
>>>>
>>>> Ubuntu.
>>>> Everything.
>>>>
>>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>>
>>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k
>>>> buffers
>>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k cached
>>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig
>>> would have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>>
>>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at
>>> the given moment.
>>>
>>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are not
>>> swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used up'. It
>>> is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As apps need
>>> ram it will be reallocated as needed.
>>>
>>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>>
>>> Dennis
>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when in
>> the swap process.
>
> I would have to question anything that MS recommends. They are not my
> favorite company to deal with. If you are normally working with files
> that require more than a half gig of swap then you probably have more
> than one gig of ram and rarely use swap anyway. The only time I start
> swapping is if I am working on several graphics or audio files at the
> same time. I have 2 gig of ram and rarely use swap.
>
> Dennis
With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile.
However, MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for
reference for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am sure
it is more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.

My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will take
their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.


--
Ron Hunter rphunter@charter.net

Ron Hunter wrote:

> With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile. However,
> MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for reference
> for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am sure it is
> more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.
>
> My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will take
> their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.
>
>

I whole heartedly agree, "MS should know their own software".
Unfortunately they have never impressed me with their knowledge of
software, including operating systems. You, running XP pro are using
one of their better versions but I would still have to vote for 2000,
if I had to choose. My laptop came with Vista Business installed, I
haven't found a use for it. I shrunk the partition and installed what
works for me. In the not too distant future I will need to free up
some disk space. Vista will be the first to go. What little I have
used it was not impressing. In probably less than 20 hours of runtime,
since September of 2007, Vista has crashed 3 times without me even
trying. Not good! One time was during an update! Yes, the first two
times were before I shrunk the partition and installed my stuff.

Dennis

clay wrote:
> Daniel wrote:
>> ...
>>
>> Clay, thank you for showing me what the command "top" does. And I
>> don't count myself as a "Linux noob"!
>>
>> Interesting that when I issued the top command, it also showed me
>> that I, like you, had three users running, me, me (as root) and
>> ..........??
>>
>> Daniel
>
> If you have a terminal open (to run top) that counts as another user
> (you, again.)
>
> $users

Me (running SeaMonkey), me (in a terminal to run "top", but not as root,
my mistake) and ...........

Daniel

On 27.06.2008 23:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
generate the following:? :
> Dennis wrote:
>
>> Ron Hunter wrote:
>>
>>> Dennis wrote:
>>>
>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> »Q« wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
>>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their new
>>>>>>> install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
>>>>>>> nothing...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
>>>>>> What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> [followup set to mozilla.general]
>>>>>>
>>>>> Ubuntu.
>>>>> Everything.
>>>>>
>>>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>>>
>>>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k
>>>>> buffers
>>>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k cached
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig
>>>> would have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>>>
>>>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at
>>>> the given moment.
>>>>
>>>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>>>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>>>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are not
>>>> swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used up'. It
>>>> is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As apps need
>>>> ram it will be reallocated as needed.
>>>>
>>>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>>>
>>>> Dennis
>>>>
>>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when in
>>> the swap process.
>>>
>> I would have to question anything that MS recommends. They are not my
>> favorite company to deal with. If you are normally working with files
>> that require more than a half gig of swap then you probably have more
>> than one gig of ram and rarely use swap anyway. The only time I start
>> swapping is if I am working on several graphics or audio files at the
>> same time. I have 2 gig of ram and rarely use swap.
>>
>> Dennis
>>
> With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile.
> However, MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for
> reference for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am sure
> it is more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.
>
> My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will take
> their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.
>
>
>

that recommendation is probably from the days of WfW running on 16MB RAM
and a 14GB HD

reg

On Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:22:52 -0700
clay wrote:

> »Q« wrote:
> > On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
> > clay wrote:
> >
> >> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their new
> >> install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
> >> nothing...
> >
> > I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
> > What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
> >
> > [followup set to mozilla.general]
>
> Ubuntu.
> Everything.
>
> ct@wimp:~$ top
>
> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k
> buffers Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free,
> 580408k cached

Ah, thanks. Those newbies shouldn't be looking at top until they know
how memory caching works.

On Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:22:37 -0400
Dennis wrote:

> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?

Nah. This thread started in m.s.firefox, but it doesn't have anything
to do with Mozilla any more.

Dennis wrote:
> Ron Hunter wrote:
>
>> With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile.
>> However, MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for
>> reference for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am
>> sure it is more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.
>>
>> My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will
>> take their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.
>>
>>
>
> I whole heartedly agree, "MS should know their own software".
> Unfortunately they have never impressed me with their knowledge of
> software, including operating systems. You, running XP pro are using one
> of their better versions but I would still have to vote for 2000, if I
> had to choose. My laptop came with Vista Business installed, I haven't
> found a use for it. I shrunk the partition and installed what works for
> me. In the not too distant future I will need to free up some disk
> space. Vista will be the first to go. What little I have used it was not
> impressing. In probably less than 20 hours of runtime, since September
> of 2007, Vista has crashed 3 times without me even trying. Not good! One
> time was during an update! Yes, the first two times were before I shrunk
> the partition and installed my stuff.
>
> Dennis

Certainly, Win2K is an old, reliable, and very stable, Windows version.
WinXP is just a bit of an interface redesign put on top of Win2K, and
it works very well for me. I keep it updated as required, and I have
found it very stable. I have little experience with Vista, other than
messing with it in stores. It is just another interface redesign to
make it look a bit different, and some things are more user-friendly,
but it is still WinXP under the hood. Perhaps the SP1 update made it
more stable. At this point, I see no real advantage to Vista, certainly
not enough to merit the cost of converting 3 computers to it.


--
Ron Hunter rphunter@charter.net

squaredancer wrote:
> On 27.06.2008 23:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
> generate the following:? :
>> Dennis wrote:
>>
>>> Ron Hunter wrote:
>>>
>>>> Dennis wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> »Q« wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
>>>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their
>>>>>>>> new install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
>>>>>>>> nothing...
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
>>>>>>> What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> [followup set to mozilla.general]
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> Ubuntu.
>>>>>> Everything.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>>>>
>>>>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>>>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>>>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>>>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>>>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k
>>>>>> buffers
>>>>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k
>>>>>> cached
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> [...]
>>>>>
>>>>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig
>>>>> would have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>>>>
>>>>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at
>>>>> the given moment.
>>>>>
>>>>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>>>>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>>>>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are
>>>>> not swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used
>>>>> up'. It is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As
>>>>> apps need ram it will be reallocated as needed.
>>>>>
>>>>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>>>>
>>>>> Dennis
>>>>>
>>>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>>>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when in
>>>> the swap process.
>>>>
>>> I would have to question anything that MS recommends. They are not my
>>> favorite company to deal with. If you are normally working with files
>>> that require more than a half gig of swap then you probably have more
>>> than one gig of ram and rarely use swap anyway. The only time I start
>>> swapping is if I am working on several graphics or audio files at the
>>> same time. I have 2 gig of ram and rarely use swap.
>>>
>>> Dennis
>>>
>> With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile.
>> However, MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for
>> reference for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am
>> sure it is more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.
>>
>> My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will
>> take their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.
>>
>>
>>
>
> that recommendation is probably from the days of WfW running on 16MB RAM
> and a 14GB HD
>
> reg
I don't think WfW would run in that little ram. The bottom line here is
that a person with a 250GB HD shouldn't really worry about letting
Windows use a couple of megabytes for a swapfile.... Talk about STINGY!


--
Ron Hunter rphunter@charter.net

Ron Hunter wrote:
> Dennis wrote:
>> clay wrote:
>>> »Q« wrote:
>>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their new
>>>>> install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
>>>>> nothing...
>>>>
>>>> I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
>>>> What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
>>>>
>>>> [followup set to mozilla.general]
>>>
>>> Ubuntu.
>>> Everything.
>>>
>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>
>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k buffers
>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k cached
>>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig would
>> have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>
>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at the
>> given moment.
>>
>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are not
>> swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used up'. It
>> is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As apps need ram
>> it will be reallocated as needed.
>>
>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>
>> Dennis
> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just why,
> but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when in the swap
> process.

Always interested me.....the more RAM you have to do things in, the more
Swap file you were supposed to allocate!!

Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might allocate
heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of MB or even
GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any of your HD??

Daniel

On 28.06.2008 10:42, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
generate the following:? :
> squaredancer wrote:
>
>> On 27.06.2008 23:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
>> generate the following:? :
>>
>>> Dennis wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> Ron Hunter wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Dennis wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> »Q« wrote:
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, 25 Jun 2008 18:14:07 -0700
>>>>>>>> clay wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> You ought to see the Linux noobs convulse when they see their
>>>>>>>>> new install using 90% of available memory just sitting there doing
>>>>>>>>> nothing...
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> I'm not quite a newbie, and that would surprise the heck out of me.
>>>>>>>> What distro, and what's using all the RAM?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> [followup set to mozilla.general]
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Ubuntu.
>>>>>>> Everything.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>>>>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>>>>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>>>>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>>>>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k
>>>>>>> buffers
>>>>>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k
>>>>>>> cached
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig
>>>>>> would have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at
>>>>>> the given moment.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>>>>>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>>>>>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are
>>>>>> not swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used
>>>>>> up'. It is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As
>>>>>> apps need ram it will be reallocated as needed.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Dennis
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>>>>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when in
>>>>> the swap process.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> I would have to question anything that MS recommends. They are not my
>>>> favorite company to deal with. If you are normally working with files
>>>> that require more than a half gig of swap then you probably have more
>>>> than one gig of ram and rarely use swap anyway. The only time I start
>>>> swapping is if I am working on several graphics or audio files at the
>>>> same time. I have 2 gig of ram and rarely use swap.
>>>>
>>>> Dennis
>>>>
>>>>
>>> With that much ram, I doubt I would write much to the swapfile.
>>> However, MS should know their own software, and the figure is ONLY for
>>> reference for those who want to allocate a fixed swapfile, and I am
>>> sure it is more than 'generous' to prevent 'out of memory' errors.
>>>
>>> My pagefile (winXP Pro) is now at 2.7GB, with 1GB of Ram, so I will
>>> take their word for it. My swapfile is managed by Windows.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> that recommendation is probably from the days of WfW running on 16MB RAM
>> and a 14GB HD
>>
>> reg
>>
> I don't think WfW would run in that little ram. The bottom line here is
> that a person with a 250GB HD shouldn't really worry about letting
> Windows use a couple of megabytes for a swapfile.... Talk about STINGY!
>
>
>

the older NT versions only required 8-12 MB - which of course, doesn't
mean that they actually "performed".


also interesting - release dates:


and if you still need some EDO-RAM... on the cheap...

32MB for US$666.33 (so that todays' youth know what computers once cost!)

reg

Dennis wrote:
>...
>>
>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>
>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi, 0.7%si,
>> 0.0%st
>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k buffers
>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k cached
>>
> [...]
>
> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig would
> have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>
> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at the
> given moment.
>
> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping much
> unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are not
> swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used up'. It is
> most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As apps need ram it
> will be reallocated as needed.
>
> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>
> Dennis

It's the old (obsolete) Windows standard of swap=2xram.
I've used up to a half gig of swap on occasion. When MythTV is
commflagging, transcoding, etc. and hellanzb is unraring something, it
gets a little poky... when load average is up around 21.00.

Thanks for reminding me about ps aux. I can see Adobe reader is no
better in Firefox on Linux than it is in Windows. View a PDF in Firefox
and acroread stays running after the browser is closed.

*-* On Sat, 28 Jun 2008, at 20:55:34 +1000,
*-* In Article J_ydnZUVo-iBhPvVnZ2dnUVZ_szinZ2d@mozilla.org,
*-* Daniel wrote
*-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory

> Ron Hunter wrote:

>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when
>> in the swap process.

> Always interested me.....the more RAM you have to do things in, the
> more Swap file you were supposed to allocate!!

> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of MB
> or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any of
> your HD??

Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the days
of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much (if any)
multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB) floppy,
so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare that with
the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs, which, by
virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM to operate
in.

Ken Whiton

FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)

clay wrote:
> Dennis wrote:
>> ...
>>>
>>> ct@wimp:~$ top
>>>
>>> top - 23:21:04 up 26 min, 3 users, load average: 0.54, 1.09, 0.78
>>> Tasks: 141 total, 1 running, 139 sleeping, 0 stopped, 1 zombie
>>> Cpu(s): 3.0%us, 1.5%sy, 0.0%ni, 83.3%id, 11.1%wa, 0.5%hi,
>>> 0.7%si, 0.0%st
>>> Mem: 1035624k total, 979608k used, 56016k free, 12728k buffers
>>> Swap: 2152668k total, 17800k used, 2134868k free, 580408k cached
>>>
>> [...]
>>
>> Why do you have 2 gig of swap with only 1 gig of ram? A half gig would
>> have been plenty, by the 'old school' standard.
>>
>> Try 'ps aux', it will give you a snapshot of what is using what at the
>> given moment.
>>
>> Does your machine feel sluggish? If not then you are probably not
>> swapping much. With one gig of ram you really shouldn't be swapping
>> much unless your are messing with audio or video apps. If you are not
>> swapping then it is fine for your ram to 'appear' to be 'used up'. It
>> is most likely free just not reallocated as such yet. As apps need ram
>> it will be reallocated as needed.
>>
>> Would mozilla.dev.platforms.linux be a better place to discuss this?
>>
>> Dennis
>
> It's the old (obsolete) Windows standard of swap=2xram.
> I've used up to a half gig of swap on occasion. When MythTV is
> commflagging, transcoding, etc. and hellanzb is unraring something, it
> gets a little poky... when load average is up around 21.00.
>
> Thanks for reminding me about ps aux. I can see Adobe reader is no
> better in Firefox on Linux than it is in Windows. View a PDF in Firefox
> and acroread stays running after the browser is closed.
Stays running AFTER the browser is closed if I recall correctly!


--
Ron Hunter rphunter@charter.net

On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
generate the following:? :
> *-* On Sat, 28 Jun 2008, at 20:55:34 +1000,
> *-* In Article J_ydnZUVo-iBhPvVnZ2dnUVZ_szinZ2d@mozilla.org,
> *-* Daniel wrote
> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>
>
>> Ron Hunter wrote:
>>
>
>
>>> MS recommends 2.5 x real ram for the swapfile. I am not sure just
>>> why, but I suspect this is to save time maintaining the file when
>>> in the swap process.
>>>
>
>
>> Always interested me.....the more RAM you have to do things in, the
>> more Swap file you were supposed to allocate!!
>>
>
>
>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of MB
>> or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any of
>> your HD??
>>
>
> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the days
> of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much (if any)
> multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB) floppy,
> so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare that with
> the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs, which, by
> virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM to operate
> in.
>
> Ken Whiton
>
> FIDO: 1:132/152
> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
>

Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
floppies? those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy (and
don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)

reg

*-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
*-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
*-* squaredancer wrote
*-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory

> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
> generate the following:? :
>> *-* Daniel wrote

[ ... ]

>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>> of your HD??

>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>> to operate in.

> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
> floppies?

No.

> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)

Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
HD).

Ken Whiton

FIDO: 1:132/152
InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)

Ken Whiton wrote:
> *-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
> *-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
> *-* squaredancer wrote
> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>
>> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>> generate the following:? :
>>> *-* Daniel wrote
>
> [ ... ]
>
>>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>>> of your HD??
>
>>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>>> to operate in.
>
>> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
>> floppies?
>
> No.
>
>> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
>> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)
>
> Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
> floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
> floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
> HD).
>
> Ken Whiton
>
> FIDO: 1:132/152
> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)

I can vaguely remember having to turn the floppy over to get to the
second 180k of storage, but must have upgraded to a dual sided floppy
disk drive fairly early.

It may have even been on an Apple IIe clone with external disk drive!

Daniel

squaredancer wrote:
> On 30.06.2008 03:20, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
> generate the following:? :
>> *-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
>> *-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
>> *-* squaredancer wrote
>> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>>
>>
>>> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>>> generate the following:? :
>>>
>>>> *-* Daniel wrote
>>>>
>>
>> [ ... ]
>>
>>
>>>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>>>> of your HD??
>>>>>
>>
>>
>>>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>>>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>>>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>>>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>>>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>>>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>>>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>>>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>>>> to operate in.
>>>>
>>
>>
>>> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
>>> floppies?
>>>
>>
>> No.
>>
>>
>>> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
>>> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)
>>>
>>
>> Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
>> floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
>> floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
>> HD).
>>
>> Ken Whiton
>>
>> FIDO: 1:132/152
>> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
>>
>
> the company I worked for got their first "PC" from Tektronix - a 4052
> main (with a massive 32KB RAM), 4662 grapic plotter and two 4097 8"
> floppy drives. The "printer" was an eletrical typewriter with an amazing
> 32 characters/min... wow!
> That was back in 1979-1980 or so, and the system was replaced by
> IBM-machines (also soon replaced with Comodore PET 128 systems)
>
> reg
>
>
A printer with 32cpM? My niece types at 140 wpm, and that would be
700cpM. Should have hired HER. Grin.

On 30.06.2008 14:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
generate the following:? :
> squaredancer wrote:
>
>> On 30.06.2008 03:20, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>> generate the following:? :
>>
>>> *-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
>>> *-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
>>> *-* squaredancer wrote
>>> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>>>> generate the following:? :
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> *-* Daniel wrote
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>> [ ... ]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>>>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>>>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>>>>> of your HD??
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>>>>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>>>>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>>>>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>>>>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>>>>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>>>>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>>>>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>>>>> to operate in.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
>>>> floppies?
>>>>
>>>>
>>> No.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
>>>> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
>>> floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
>>> floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
>>> HD).
>>>
>>> Ken Whiton
>>>
>>> FIDO: 1:132/152
>>> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
>>>
>>>
>> the company I worked for got their first "PC" from Tektronix - a 4052
>> main (with a massive 32KB RAM), 4662 grapic plotter and two 4097 8"
>> floppy drives. The "printer" was an eletrical typewriter with an amazing
>> 32 characters/min... wow!
>> That was back in 1979-1980 or so, and the system was replaced by
>> IBM-machines (also soon replaced with Comodore PET 128 systems)
>>
>> reg
>>
>>
>>
> A printer with 32cpM? My niece types at 140 wpm, and that would be
> 700cpM. Should have hired HER. Grin.
>

cor - does she have dual quad-cpu's installed??

reg

On 30.06.2008 11:13, squaredancer wrote:

--- Original Message ---

> On 30.06.2008 14:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
> generate the following:? :
>> squaredancer wrote:
>>
>>> On 30.06.2008 03:20, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>>> generate the following:? :
>>>
>>>> *-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
>>>> *-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
>>>> *-* squaredancer wrote
>>>> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton to
>>>>> generate the following:? :
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>> *-* Daniel wrote
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> [ ... ]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>>>>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>>>>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>>>>>> of your HD??
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>>>>>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>>>>>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>>>>>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>>>>>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>>>>>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>>>>>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>>>>>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>>>>>> to operate in.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
>>>>> floppies?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
>>>>> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
>>>> floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
>>>> floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
>>>> HD).
>>>>
>>>> Ken Whiton
>>>>
>>>> FIDO: 1:132/152
>>>> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
>>>>
>>>>
>>> the company I worked for got their first "PC" from Tektronix - a 4052
>>> main (with a massive 32KB RAM), 4662 grapic plotter and two 4097 8"
>>> floppy drives. The "printer" was an eletrical typewriter with an amazing
>>> 32 characters/min... wow!
>>> That was back in 1979-1980 or so, and the system was replaced by
>>> IBM-machines (also soon replaced with Comodore PET 128 systems)
>>>
>>> reg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> A printer with 32cpM? My niece types at 140 wpm, and that would be
>> 700cpM. Should have hired HER. Grin.
>>
>
> cor - does she have dual quad-cpu's installed??
>
> reg
>

No, she has a brain, something is lacking in printers. :-)

32cpM - 8 four letter words/minute .. wow, speed demon. I've never seen
a printer that slow and I worked with some of the slowest in the late
60's connected to mainframes. Even back then we had 132 character
printers so fast that the paper would stand straight up almost two feet
before fan-folding over.

--
Jay Garcia Netscape Champion
UFAQ - http://www.UFAQ.org

squaredancer wrote:
> On 30.06.2008 14:07, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ron Hunter to
> generate the following:? :
>> squaredancer wrote:
>>
>>> On 30.06.2008 03:20, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken Whiton
>>> to generate the following:? :
>>>
>>>> *-* On Sun, 29 Jun 2008, at 22:11:30 +0200,
>>>> *-* In Article 2pudnWpryojvcfrVnZ2dnUVZ_h_inZ2d@mozilla.org,
>>>> *-* squaredancer wrote
>>>> *-* About Re: Firefox 3 still hogs memory
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On 29.06.2008 05:38, CET - what odd quirk of fate caused Ken
>>>>> Whiton to
>>>>> generate the following:? :
>>>>>
>>>>>> *-* Daniel wrote
>>>>>>
>>>> [ ... ]
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>> Back in the days of 640kbytes of RAM, I could see why you might
>>>>>>> allocate heaps of HD as a swapfile, but when you've got 100's of
>>>>>>> MB or even GBytes of RAM, why should you then need to allocate any
>>>>>>> of your HD??
>>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>> Two reasons: multitasking and software bloat. Back in the
>>>>>> days of 640 KB neither the CPUs nor the OSs were capable of much
>>>>>> (if any) multitasking, so there was little or no need for swapping.
>>>>>> Furthermore, back in the days before HDs were available in PCs
>>>>>> programs had to be able to fit on a 360 KB (or even a 180 KB)
>>>>>> floppy, so programmers had to write tight, efficient code. Compare
>>>>>> that with the size and complexity of (most of) today's programs,
>>>>>> which, by virtue of that size and complexity require much more RAM
>>>>>> to operate in.
>>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> Ho, Ken - you also remember the 8" days of single and double-sided
>>>>> floppies?
>>>>>
>>>> No.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> those were the days when a floppy really *WAS* a floppy
>>>>> (and don't get your sticky fingers on the read-slot)
>>>>>
>>>> Actually, I don't even have any experience with the 180 KB
>>>> floppies. The first PCs we had where I worked had 360 KB 5 1/4"
>>>> floppies, and my first home PC had dual 720 KB 3 1/2" floppies (and no
>>>> HD).
>>>>
>>>> Ken Whiton
>>>>
>>>> FIDO: 1:132/152
>>>> InterNet: kenwhiton@surfglobal.net.INVAL (remove the obvious to reply)
>>>>
>>> the company I worked for got their first "PC" from Tektronix - a 4052
>>> main (with a massive 32KB RAM), 4662 grapic plotter and two 4097 8"
>>> floppy drives. The "printer" was an eletrical typewriter with an
>>> amazing 32 characters/min... wow!
>>> That was back in 1979-1980 or so, and the system was replaced by
>>> IBM-machines (also soon replaced with Comodore PET 128 systems)
>>>
>>> reg
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> A printer with 32cpM? My niece types at 140 wpm, and that would be
>> 700cpM. Should have hired HER. Grin.
>>
>
> cor - does she have dual quad-cpu's installed??
>
> reg
>
May have been an IBM Selectric (betha didn't know I was geezer enough to
know about those.)
Or might have been like the Daisy wheel Printer I have made by
UA/Olivetti I have a whole book of Daisy wheels. I have a interface box
That connected first to my Apple IIGS Clone then I used it on my first
Mac an SE/30. It used replaceable correction tape and Film type ink
Cartridges in Black , Blue, Red, or Brown. It printed slow but the print
you received was as good as any of today's laser printers. Pica an Elie
were the popular choices (I liked Elite better) b But I bought other
such as a script like you use to make Christmas Cards with. AS I said I
have a Whole book of the daisy wheels.

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Phillip M. Jones, CET http://www.vpea.org
If it's "fixed", don't "break it"! mailtojones@kimbanet.com
http://www.kimbanet.com/~pjones/default.htm
Mac G4-500, OSX.3.9, 1.5GB Mac 17" PowerBook G4-1.67 GHz, 2 GB OSX.4.11
------------------------------------------------------------------------