how to reduce the RAM usage in KDE
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Registered Member 
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hi again,
I am running KDE on Arch Linux and I noticed that the RAM usage for KDE is slightly higher than what I used to see on Gnome. After starting up Arch Linux, usually in Gnome it takes only i think ~300Mb but on KDE it takes ~500Mb I have 4 gig Ram so I really don't care about it that much but I would like to know if there are some unnecessary things that needs to be removed from the startup ? I removed Nepomuk is there anything else that I need to remove? |
Administrator
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What processes take up most memory?
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Registered Member
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Kwin + Plasma desktop !
What should the normal RAM usage be, after starting the OS ? |
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Administrator
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I think that's very hard to generalize. Here "System Activity" reports that plasma-desktop takes 27.9 MB and kwin 19.6 MB, but measuring memory usage is always tricky. This is with ~11 hours uptime by the way, 1.5 GB total RAM.
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10 things you might want to do in KDE | Open menu with Super key | Mouse shortcuts |
Global Moderator
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plasma 55.1MB (shared 31.1MB) kwin 51.7 (shared 30.7MB) But I am not surprised that KDE has a slightly larger mem footprint - seeing that you are on Arch I take it you have the latest gnome. If you tried XFCE4 it should be even lower and xmonad or ratpoison will hardly register on the mem Richter scale...
Debian testing
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Registered Member
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i am running KDE only ... well I really dont care about the ram usage because I have 4 gig ram and besides I like KDE. for now light weight DE/WM is not an option. I posted this thread just to know if there are things I should tweak to make my experience much better 
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Registered Member
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My KDE also has a ridiculous RAM usage, I am also running Arch Linux.
Right now, after logging into KDE (autostarted applications are Kontact and Gajim), and opening Firefox, the RAM usage is about 1.8GB. Also, the system reacts sometimes very slow, especially when using Kontact with the KMail component. Also, I/O activity seems to be very high, according to the noise made by my drives. To put it short, KDE seems to be slower than it should be, on a Machine with 2 120MB/s Harddrives (one Harddrive holds /, the other one /home), a Phenom II X4 955, and 4Gigs of DDR3-RAM. I don't know what the average KDE-Users specs are, but I think it should at least run smooth and start up fast. I tried to find the memory eating process, but aside from virtuoso-t and firefox, there are no "outstanding" processes. Even withouth virtuoso and firefox, total RAM usage would still be around 1.3GB, what seems to be too much for me. Since I do not know a better way of posting my RAM usage stats, I'll boldly link a screenshot of the task manager, tasks sorted by ram usage: http://cloud.revreso.de/apps/files_sharing/get.php?token=0f180e2261d6cab4fa8a9fcf0b60917c748e644a |
Administrator
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Can you please try closing all KDE PIM applications then running the following and see how memory usage changes? This process stops Nepomuk and Akonadi.
If you need to use KDE PIM applications afterward, you may need to run this prior to starting them:
See how that impacts memory utilisation and disk usage. Akonadi/Nepomuk have both been known to use the hard disk quite a bit under the right circumstances.
KDE Sysadmin
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Registered Member
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Ok, I closed Kontact (closing it via GUI apparently didn't shut it down completely, I had to kill the process) and the Korganizer-Remider, now total RAM usage (including Firefox and Gajim, as before) is about 900MB.
Here the output of ps, sorted by memory usage (I removed all that module stuff):
Yes, ATM I am using GDM to login, but that is just for the purpose of trying out GNOME, no permanent setup. I still prefer KDE for my Desktop  The following output is after closing Gajim and Firefox (total usage was about 700MB):
If it makes any difference: I have switched the QT Graphics System to Raster instead of XRender, it runs faster with a Nvidia-Dualscreen setup. |
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Administrator
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How many applets do you have open? Also, is this a freshly started session or one that is several days old? My fairly minimal session has been running for several days, leading to Plasma consuming 145mb of RAM. KWin is only using about 70mb though, but that could be due to the NVidia driver.
KDE Sysadmin
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Registered Member
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I configured KDE to start a blank session on login, and posted the last post right after logging in, so I would call it a fresh session.
Running Applets are: Folder View, System Monitor (showing CPU, Network, Ram usage and temperatures), and on a panel: kickoff, workspace-switcher, icontasks, notification tray and a clock. I am using the proprietary nvidia-driver too, running a twinview setup with a total resolution of 2304x1024 (1280x1024 + 1024x786), just in case the screen size plays an important role for plasma. |
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Administrator
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Ok, nothing too major there. I would guess that screen size likely does play a role in how much memory is used by Plasma. Given your Plasma instance is using less memory than mine does at the moment, I would consider the memory used by Plasma on your system to normal.
There isn't much you can do to reduce memory usage at this point other than killing off the GNOME processes to avoid two toolkits being loaded at once.
KDE Sysadmin
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Registered Member
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Are there some improvements to this topic in the upcoming release?
By the way, I am reinstalling Arch on my Notebook (not the PC we are talking about), and I am going to try out KDE on it (actually the first time trying to use KDE4.x on a mobile device). Just for the sake of completeness, I will post the memory usage in this thread. Since it has only one screen, the memory usage should be lower. |
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Administrator
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I am not aware of any specific work on memory optimisation, but due to the Plasma Active effort, some optimisations could have been done. It hasn't been specifically mentioned though.
KDE Sysadmin
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Registered Member
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Ok, so after switching from my dual-head setup to one FullHD-Screen, and upgrading to KDE4.8 (it was around the same time, so I can't say for sure what did it), the RAM-Usage is now at an acceptable level.
Maybe it really was plasma being scaled on a huge virtual twinview-screen, but at least for me its solved now. |
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