[xubuntu-users] xubuntu-users Digest, Vol 120, Issue 29

[Peter Flynn]

On 01/21/2017 01:39 PM, Joanna Hoyt wrote:
> Thanks all for your advice.
> 
> I ran swapon -s and got the following message:
> 
> Filename /dev/sda5    Type partition  Size 2079470  Used 0  Priority -1
> 
> Does that suggest that the swap space is adequate?

I'm not qualified to judge, but the rule of thumb I was given back in
the days when you had to establish all the partitions manually, was to
set swap to be twice the amount of installed memory.

> I'm confused about the RAM issue. Askubuntu.com says that Xubuntu
> requires 512 MB RAM... but you're saying it actually requires eight
> times that much RAM in order to run bug-free?

Nothing to do with bugs (bugs are programming faults, which are going to
be there no matter how much or how little memory you have).

Linux will technically *run* in 512MB but IMHE it will absolutely
*crawl*, taking many minutes to respond to the mouse or keyboard. I'm on
a 2GB laptop at the moment, and it's working OK, but occasionally slows
down when switching from application to application. And it takes 7-8
mins to boot.

I wouldn't want to run more than 3-4 user applications (eg mail, web,
wordprocessor, spreadsheet) simultaneously unless you have more than 2GB
memory. But there are *lots* of other factors involved.

There are things you can do to lessen the demands on memory -- one is to
run Xubuntu so that you use xfce as your interface instead of Unity
(Unity sucks all your memory into a black hole). Use lighter software:
eg Claws-Mail instead of Thunderbird. Use AbiWord instead of
LibreOffice. Use command-line utilities instead of graphical ones.
Unfortunately on the web browser front, they all seem to be memory-hogs.

///Peter