Hi all,
I’m on openSuse 13.01, KDE. The problem is that it all gets sloooooow after I use Internet (I use both Mozilla Firefox and Chromium). When these two browsers are open, everything works sooo slow. I have enough memory, I don’t know what’s eating it so much. Any ideas? Thank you.
Run: top
In a terminal and keep a watch of it as things slow down. Does anything stand out?
On Sat, 05 Apr 2014 11:16:01 +0000, riderplus wrote:
> I have enough memory,
Please define “enough” - your definition and the definition that others
use may not be the same - specificity is everyone’s friend here. 
Jim
–
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
On 2014-04-05 13:16, riderplus wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> I’m on openSuse 13.01, KDE. The problem is that it all gets sloooooow
> after I use Internet (I use both Mozilla Firefox and Chromium). When
> these two browsers are open, everything works sooo slow. I have enough
> memory,
How much is that?
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Thank you for your fast reply. Here’s what I have:
free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1997 1851 145 135 74 799
-/+ buffers/cache: 976 1020
Swap: 2036 0 2036
top
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1496 user 20 0 1277616 251984 58820 R 40.20 12.32 0:58.58 firefox
1877 user 20 0 1096532 120076 34084 R 24.25 5.872 0:45.16 chromium
1478 user 20 0 662940 120500 38268 S 19.27 5.892 0:26.88 chromium
1736 user 20 0 1189280 147400 29964 S 18.94 7.208 0:35.36 chromium
655 root 20 0 287048 42628 21412 S 11.63 2.085 0:26.72 Xorg
1279 user 9 -11 444904 7812 5264 S 8.637 0.382 0:12.18 pulseaudio
1439 user 20 0 1283392 99728 49392 S 6.644 4.877 0:27.51 chromium
Hope it helps, thanks!
On 2014-04-06 10:36, riderplus wrote:
>
> Thank you for your fast reply. Here’s what I have:
>
>
> Code:
> --------------------
> free -m
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 1997 1851 145 135 74 799
> -/+ buffers/cache: 976 1020
> Swap: 2036 0 2036
>
> --------------------
Thanks. Then you have little memory, just under 2 gibibytes. And, your
swap is also too small, about the same size.
I would increase swap to about 10 GB.
> Code:
> --------------------
> top
> PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
> 1496 user 20 0 1277616 251984 58820 R 40.20 12.32 0:58.58 firefox
> 1877 user 20 0 1096532 120076 34084 R 24.25 5.872 0:45.16 chromium
> 1478 user 20 0 662940 120500 38268 S 19.27 5.892 0:26.88 chromium
> 1736 user 20 0 1189280 147400 29964 S 18.94 7.208 0:35.36 chromium
> 655 root 20 0 287048 42628 21412 S 11.63 2.085 0:26.72 Xorg
> 1279 user 9 -11 444904 7812 5264 S 8.637 0.382 0:12.18 pulseaudio
> 1439 user 20 0 1283392 99728 49392 S 6.644 4.877 0:27.51 chromium
>
> --------------------
The top banner of “top” would have been interesting to see, you removed it.
Well, both firefox and chromium use lots of memory, and you do not have
lots. System probably uses swap then, and that is slow. Also, having
little memory means that the system can not dedicate enough ram to
buffers and disc cache.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
2gb is on the (very) low side for running a modern operating system. I’d at least double it, but 6gb or 8gb would be better - especially if running a full featured desktop like KDE or Gnome.
I’m not sure I’d agree with robin_listas that 2gb of swap is too small. If you have sufficient physical memory then a 2gb swap should be fine.
On 2014-04-06 16:26, farcusnz wrote:
> 2gb is on the (very) low side for running a modern operating system.
> I’d at least double it, but 6gb or 8gb would be better - especially if
> running a full featured desktop like KDE or Gnome.
> I’m not sure I’d agree with robin_listas that 2gb of swap is too small.
> If you have sufficient physical memory then a 2gb swap should be fine.
You can have swap as big as you want. As 2 GB of RAM is to little, he
needs more swap instead.
Of course, adding more RAM is preferable - if possible and feasible.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
Yes, of course. The less RAM you run, the more space you will require for Swap.
And there is never too much Swap, other than it wastes disk space if it is not getting used. This is only of concern to people with limited drive space.
His output shows zero swap. used. But it is not certain the figure comes when the browser is running. 2 gig should be ok for most things unless he has a bunch of tabs open
Coming back to this …
I think you are saying 2gb of memory is insufficient.
Actually, I do not share the opinion that 2-Gigs of memory is on the very low side for running a modern OS.
I am running 2 on my main personal PC with openSUSE 12.3 and it is happily chugging along through heavy use, including heavy multimedia work and more. I am consistently pleased with its speed and performance, and do not feel compelled in any way to run out and grab more RAM.
However, I am running a 20-Gig Swap – which is definitely overkill, as on a 2-Gig RAM system the ideal recommended spec is for a 4-Gig swap – and I believe that might have something to do with my snappy performance. When I finally make enough headway on my other projects, I will be moving this machine to 13.1, as I have most of the others.
When I do that, I will be reducing Swap size.
The above swap spec – 4-Gig for 2-Gigs RAM – is a flexible starting point. If you are going heavy into multimedia processing, publishing, AutoCAD, or similar heavy applications, you should bump up the swap size.
I’m not sure I’d agree with robin_listas that 2gb of swap is too small. If you have sufficient physical memory then a 2gb swap should be fine.
Again … I thoroughly agree with Carlos that 2-Gigs Swap is not really enough for 2-Gigs RAM.
And I also agree with gogalthorp that a 2-Gig swap should be okay (just acceptable) for most things.
But, I also sense that this is not the main cause of the OP’s problem.
I just want to point out, that memory is apparently NOT the issue here, as there is no swap in use, and even 145M RAM free.
But those firefox and chromium processes use a lot of CPU:
top
PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
1496 user 20 0 1277616 251984 58820 R 40.20 12.32 0:58.58 firefox
1877 user 20 0 1096532 120076 34084 R 24.25 5.872 0:45.16 chromium
1478 user 20 0 662940 120500 38268 S 19.27 5.892 0:26.88 chromium
1736 user 20 0 1189280 147400 29964 S 18.94 7.208 0:35.36 chromium
655 root 20 0 287048 42628 21412 S 11.63 2.085 0:26.72 Xorg
1279 user 9 -11 444904 7812 5264 S 8.637 0.382 0:12.18 pulseaudio
1439 user 20 0 1283392 99728 49392 S 6.644 4.877 0:27.51 chromium
[/QUOTE]
The first four sum up to over 100% already.
I would say that’s why your system is getting slow.
Are there any flash applets running in your browser tabs?
Maybe you’re not using hw acceleration?
Some javascript running havoc?
On 2014-04-07 03:16, Fraser Bell wrote:
> Actually, I do not share the opinion that 2-Gigs of memory is on the
> -very low side- for running a modern OS.
Depends what you use it for. My desktop has 8 GiB, and runs into swap.
About 2 gigs, I think. Of course, I load it…
More RAM? The board will not admit more.
Then I have a sort of 24/7 fileserver on an old laptop, single cpu, P4,
just 500 MB, and it doesn’t even use swap. Well, it is using 109 Mb
today, but it has 400 MB of ram “available”.
> The above swap spec – 4-Gig for 2-Gigs RAM – is a flexible starting
> point. If you are going heavy into multimedia processing, publishing,
> AutoCAD, or similar heavy applications, you should bump up the swap
> size.
Firefox and Thunderbird are heavy in memory load. The two top heavy apps
in my usage. Then comes about any java application. Libreoffice, too.
Virtualized systems.
spamd is also quite heavy. Clamav, amavis…
> Again … I thoroughly agree with Carlos that 2-Gigs Swap is not enough
> for 2-Gigs RAM.
>
> But, I also sense that this is not the main cause of the OP’s problem.
Not at present, right.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
On 2014-04-07 08:46, wolfi323 wrote:
>
> I just want to point out, that memory is apparently NOT the issue here,
> as there is no swap in use, and even 145M RAM free.
There is not a lot of buffer/cache available. This makes disk operation
slower.
> The first four sum up to over 100% already.
> I would say that’s why your system is getting slow.
>
> Are there any flash applets running in your browser tabs?
Good point. I would use “flashblock” or equivalent. I do…
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” (Minas Tirith))
In Firefox, where I do most my browsing, I always run with javascript and flash disabled. I only turn those on when required for something I want to do.
On sites that require either – or both – of these, if there is no special reason to visit the site, I just avoid the site & go elsewhere.
In my opinion, flash is used most often for one of two reasons: Invasiveness, or very lazy web designing.
On my own website, I have neither, as well as no cookies to date.
On Mon, 07 Apr 2014 01:16:01 +0000, Fraser Bell wrote:
> I think you are saying 2gb of -memory- is insufficient.
>
> Actually, I do not share the opinion that 2-Gigs of memory is on the
> -very low side- for running a modern OS.
It depends.
I’ve got a desktop with 6 GB of RAM, and if I run Chrome and a Windows 8
virtual machine, I can end up with the machine locking up while swapping
stuff in and out. I’ve had times where the system locked for over 30
minutes because I forgot to shut Chrome down.
I wouldn’t dream of doing that on a 2 GB machine.
2 GB /is/ considered low for any modern operating system. That’s not
really an opinion - that’s generally considered a best practice, unless
you’re running specialized apps that just don’t require that much memory.
If you have to swap to disk, you’re bound by the I/O channel of the disk
controller and drive. That is /always/ slower than the speed to RAM.
Jim Henderson
openSUSE Forums Administrator
Forum Use Terms & Conditions at http://tinyurl.com/openSUSE-T-C
Yes, it all depends on what you are doing.
2 GB /is/ considered low for any modern operating system. That’s not
really an opinion - that’s generally considered a best practice, unless
you’re running specialized apps that just don’t require that much memory.
I agree with that, 2 GB is “low” or “adequate” for most situations – in openSUSE, which tends to use more resources than many other distros. I just disagree that it is “Very Low”.
Thank you, all, for your replies and interest in this topic.
I disagree that there’s not enough memory/ swap. Well, it is, but surely Carlos is right that it would be better if I had more. Of course, but for the moment I can’t spend my money on a new laptop. Plus, I had Puppy Linux installed and it was working like a charm. I’m not blaming OpenSUSE, I’m just saying that it might depend on how the hardware resources are administered via one OS or another.
The problem with flash on Linux is a long and boring one. I need to use flash and javascript and I don’t know why Linux vomits flash clips and java scripts all over the place. When it doesn’t vomit them, it just gets intoxicated and the CPU is driven mad for being overused. It’s like the CPU gets an overdose of an illegal drug, or something like that. I totally hate this incompatibility between Linux and flash videos / java scripts. Why? Why do they have to eat Linux’s liver, FFS? Why do they have to deplete the CPU, suspend its breath or whatever? The funny thing is…google Chromium browser is guilty of this overusage. When I only have Mozilla powered on, the CPU is a mild doggy. When I fire up Chromium, things turn up to be really nasty, as the CPU usage grows fast and furious.
Cheers,
On 2014-04-08 23:36, riderplus wrote:
>
> Thank you, all, for your replies and interest in this topic.
>
> I disagree that there’s not enough memory/ swap. Well, it is, but surely
> Carlos is right that -it would be better if I had more-. Of course, but
> for the moment I can’t spend my money on a new laptop. Plus, I had Puppy
> Linux installed and it was working like a charm.
Of course it did! Puppy is specially designed to work on little memory!
> The problem with flash on Linux is a long and boring one. I need to use
> flash and javascript and I don’t know why Linux vomits flash clips and
> java scripts all over the place. When it doesn’t vomit them, it just
> gets intoxicated and the CPU is driven mad for being overused.
Block them all, and allow only those you really need to see.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 13.1 x86_64 “Bottle” at Telcontar)
I think you are reading far too much into my post.
I bracketed (very) because for general usage (web browsing, email etc . . .) 2 gig might perhaps be considered a little low.
If you are doing anything that might be a little taxing, or performing multiple tasks at once then the very would come in to play.
e.g. I do a lot of video editing - for this, 2 GB would be considered very low (and probably unusable).
But, as far as the OP goes, his requirement will depend entirely on what he is using the machine for.