[TEAM] Modifying the minimum required RAM

[Eero Tamminen]

Hi,

On 01/24/2017 11:29 AM, Dave Pearson wrote:
> Just ran some tests on yesterdays Zesty 64bit ISO on a Virtual Box VM set for
> 1GB ram.
>
> Even with the slight performance loss on running on a VM, I was working
> acceptably with File manager, Firefox (two tabs) Gnome software, terminal and
> Calc (slight delay on Calc straight after swapping from Software to Calc, but
> after a few second that stopped.
>
> But looking at 'Top'  Gnome software and Calc were the biggest memory uses.

I think that's just because they map a lot of files, it's
not real memory usage.

Instead of "top", use e.g. this tool:
	http://packages.ubuntu.com/yakkety/smem
	https://www.selenic.com/smem/

And look at the PSS information.

(PSS information changes depending on how many apps are running
as unlike RSS & VmSize, it takes memory sharing into account.)


> I usually do my iso testing on VM's with 2GB of ram, and while you do get a much
> better perforamce with 2, those people who will be using older hardware with
> 1GB, would know not to expect to run loads of apps at once and expect a fluid
> performance.

Most of the apps are fine in 1GB even if you run a lot of them.

Only things like www-browsers, LibreOffice and manipulating large images 
e.g. in Gimp are really memory hungry.

(Real-time video editing is already otherwise too demanding for
these machines. :-))


	- Eero


>     On 24 January 2017 at 01:32 Pasi Lallinaho <pasi at shimmerproject.org> wrote:
>
>     Canonical developers do not benchmark or run any regular testing on
>     Xubuntu; this is not their work. Whether they do that for Ubuntu, I
>     don't know. To be exact, Canonical "only" offers the infrastructure for
>     Xubuntu.
>
>     If there are volunteers who are willing to set up a benchmarking
>     process, run the benchmarks and ideally work on improving code in order
>     to succeed better in the benchmarks, we're totally welcoming them.
>
>     I haven't run Xubuntu on low-memory (virtual) machines lately, so I have
>     no idea what the usability is below 2GB RAM, but I'm pretty sure it's
>     usable.
>
>     Setting the minimum any higher than the "acceptable" doesn't make any
>     sense. If we consider 1GB memory bringing an acceptable experience but
>     set the minimum to 2GB, we could potentially turn out people with just
>     1GB memory – just by telling the minimum is 2GB. In other words, by
>     setting the minimum too high, we would put Xubuntu out of reach for some
>     users only *socially* (as technically they could still run Xubuntu).
>     This is why the minimum should be as low as possible.
>
>     Ultimately smoothness and acceptable responsiveness is very subjective;
>     this is why we have minimum and recommended. Maybe you're saying
>     recommended should be 2GB; if the minimum is 1GB, this sounds sensible.
>
>     Cheers,
>     Pasi
>
>     On 2017-01-24 02:49, JMZ wrote:
>
>         Do Canonical developers routinely benchmark xubuntu (and other
>         flavors) against a Windows or Mac OSX version? In other words, should
>         the recommended xubuntu RAM size be sufficient to run programs at a
>         speed similar to the memory-hungry programs on a Windows or Mac box
>         (Office, Internet Exploder, etc.)? For xubuntu, I'm thinking of the
>         Firefox, Thunderbird, and LibreOffice triad in particular. As
>         flocculant wrote, 1024 MB should be the very minimum. I would say
>         2048 MB should be the minimum, but that would place xubuntu out of the
>         reach of many computer users globally.
>
>         Jordan
>
>         On 01/23/2017 06:29 PM, Pasi Lallinaho wrote:
>
>             What is comfortable is definitely subjective, but I think the minimum
>             system requirements should reflect an environment where you run one
>             resource-intensive application at a time at most. Or in other words,
>             you shouldn't expect to be able to edit high quality video and watch
>             another at the same time smoothly with the minimum requirements.
>             However, you should be able to be somwhat productive with your work
>             with those resources.
>
>             Cheers,
>             Pasi
>
>     --
>     Pasi Lallinaho (knome) › http://open.knome.fi/
>     Xubuntu Website Lead & Council member › http://xubuntu.org/
>     Shimmer Project co-founder › http://shimmerproject.org/
>     Ubuntu member
>
>     --
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>     xubuntu-devel at lists.ubuntu.com
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>
>
>