Re: Linux doesn't seem to manage memory very well

On 03/05/2024 00:23, Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

Carlos E.R. <robin_listas@es.invalid> wrote:

On 2024-05-02 16:06, James Harris wrote:

>
Yes, I am (at least tentatively) blaming Linux but not for the problem
you think. I wouldn't expect Linux to prevent programs from gobbling up
memory but I would expect it to manage memory hogs more gracefully than
it does. IME Windows handles the same situation better - and that may be
down to the different designs of their paging systems.
>
Don't get me wrong. I much prefer Linux to Windows and have often seen
Windows get into a worse situation under different circumstances. But
for page management ISTM that the design of Linux's paging subsystem may
not be the best.

>
You can configure Linux to crash the application that is behaving badly
by grabbing all the memory. It is up to you, the boss.
>
The philosophy is not to nanny care for you. It does what you asked.
More memory? Yes sir. Till death does us part. Your orders will be obeyed.
>
:-)

 I didn't know there was an option not to have it do that (via the
Out Of Memory Reaper). It seems the alternatives are to reboot or
risk the kernel crashing, so your description seems about right.
 https://www.oracle.com/technical-resources/articles/it-infrastructure/dev-oom-killer.html
 The OP has noted now that the process that consumes their RAM is
Chrome or Firefox. I've not seen a detailed description of why it
happens, but I've long noted that Firefox seems to expand its RAM
usage to the available space, but different from a memory leak in
that it usually leaves a certain amount free. I assume that this
in intended behaviour. I run current Firefox on a PC with 2GB RAM
and I don't have it getting killed by the kernel, nor do I have
problems with kernel crashes/reboots. I've also tried running
recent Firefox on a PC with 512MB RAM and noticed that it performs
much worse than with 2GB RAM, slowing down to a crawl while loading
some websites, suggesting that it really does need more RAM in that
case.
 I don't use web browsers to play video. If you're streaming super
high resolution video through your browser with the latest and
greatest compression algorithms, then it probably has the right
to chew up a lot of RAM.
 

I use browsers to play videos. RAM usage is not massive. CPU usage is.
What chews memory are *commercial* websites loaded with (deliberately) buggy javaScript that cause javaScript engines to go into meltdown. How that is handled is browser dependent.
Ublock Origin helps massively, but is not a complete answer.
What is a massive help at leats in Mint Mate is the System Monitor widget that I keep in the task bar permanently displaying CPU, RAM and Network usage as teeny graphs.
It is very easy to see when memory is all grabbed by a process rather than simply cache
And monitor how much gets released when you close a website page.
It is configurable to do what htop, top and atop do in a much simpler way for GUI users
Right now, it looks like Thunderbird is my biggest surprise at almost a gigabyte?
I will close it and reopen it. It shouldnt be THAT heavy on memory.
--
“when things get difficult you just have to lie”
― Jean Claud Jüncker