Plasmoids and Power Consumption

[Steven Vollom]

On Tuesday 14 April 2009 12:42:05 pm John DeCarlo wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 14, 2009 at 10:07 AM, Steven Vollom
>
> <stevenvollom at sbcglobal.net>wrote:
> > I installed 16 of the system info plasmoids on my computer.  I just
> > noticed that with only Kontact waiting for messages, 7111mb of memory are
> > being consumed.  Is it possible that these plasmoids could be using that
> > much RAM?
> >
> > I like them, but not that much.  With 8gb of RAM, I didn't think I could
> > use
> > that much.  I have less than a gig remaining, for normal operation of the
> > computer.
>
> What tool are you using for the statistics?

It is one of the downloaded plasmoids.  I have since looked for the entries 
for the plasmoids that I use for statistics and cannot find them among the ones 
listed when you click on add widgets.  As far as the plasmoids, they don't 
show a help or about entry, and don't have a title bar.  Here is how they are 
named:  Memory | Swap Space Usage, AMD Phenom(fm) 9600Quad-Core Processor, 
File System Usage :  Free | Used | Capacity | Utilized, Tasks :187 COMMAND 
USER %CPU  ALL, Network ethO: IP adress[misspld.] |  Gateway |  Name Servers, 
and Established Connections: 0.
>
> Linux will try to use all memory available, where useful.  Why have unused
> RAM, when you could be caching, etc.?

The only thing running right now except the 7 plasmoids running statistics, is 
Kontact, and 5.813gb of memory is in use.  I removed 9.   Does that seem 
right?
>
> I have installed a plasmoid that shows memory usage, distinguishing between
> completely unused, used for cache, and used directly.  Even with 4 GB of
> RAM, it is almost always mostly cache.
>
> In other words - you probably have 6+ GB of RAM for normal operations, even
> with 7+GB being used.
I am reading up on Memory leaks.  Is that something I should consider?

What is the command that indicates what is using what and how much?

Steven