the former uses 638Mb the latter 333Mb after boot without graphical login using openSUSE 11.2
why desktop kernel is the the default and default kernel isn’t? which are the differences?
bye
PS is there a guide to slim openSUSE?
The desktop is optimized for desktop usage. The default is optimized for server usage. The amount of memory used in a Linux system for the most part is immaterial since much is used for cache to speed disk i/o and is still “available”. Though interesting your memory figures really don’t mean anything with out further breakdown.
ouch my english isn’t enought for yr last sentence… anyway… i’ve checked it using the free -m command reading the usage entry
my question is: what are the desktop optimizations that should make me choose that kernel instead the default one? is there some documentation about openSUSE kernels (yes, i did a search… nothing found in the main wiki)?
I think I may understand what your question is, but pardon me if I’m wrong.
A standardized kernel has to accommodate many types of hardware/software choices. A server may have a different needs than a desktop computer and so the kernel will be different. But you probably already knew that. I wouldn’t spend a lot of time worrying about it.
Are you running a server? I ran servers with both CLI only, and also some with GUI, Gnome desktop to be exact. It didn’t make much difference to the production software if the desktop took up a little more memory. It all ran well if given enough CPU and RAM.
I hope this helps a little.
Ask yourself, are you going to use this machine as a server or a desktop?
The desktop kernel will work in a sever but the default would be better for the types of loads a server runs. The same works for the default you can run a desktop with default but it desktop does better for desktop operations.
You may want to run ‘top’ to see how memory and cpu is being allocated. pay attention to cache memory. You will see that the memory is divided up into used (memory used by processes), cache (memory currently being used as disk cache this memory can be used for processes if needed) and free. Linux tends to grab all the memory it can and normally there is very little memory in the free pool. When a process needs some memory it can be gotten from the cache pool)
There are also several other flavors of the kernel. RT is optimized for real time processes. pae is 32 bit only but allows os address space up to 64 gig. Vanilla is the kernel as it comes from the kernel.org without any Suse tweaks.
mmm i’m using the laptop as java workstation… i need ram ehehe
i suppose that desktop kernel has more hardware compatibility due to its broad way of usage against default kernel… i’m now using default kernel without hardware problems…