How does Ubuntu-Mate perform on 2gb of ram?

7

Hi @gordon ,

So, you might want to give 64-bit a chance. Maybe it'll perform miserably. But you might just lend a new life to your netbook.

It turned out you are absolutely right :smiley:

I tried it, and ....
.... I now run Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 (64bit) on a netbook with 768 MB

This is the hardware:
lsmem

Memory block size:       128M
Total online memory:     768M
Total offline memory:      0B

inxi -CGMm

Machine:
  Type: Laptop System: ASUSTeK product: 1015BX v: x.x
   Mobo: ASUSTeK model: 1015BXO v: x.xx
    BIOS: American Megatrends v: 0610 date: 04/16/2012
Memory:
  RAM: total: 699.3 MiB
  
CPU:
  Info: dual core model: AMD C-60 APU with Radeon HD Graphics bits: 64
    type: MCP cache: L2: 1024 KiB
  Speed (MHz): avg: 802 min/max: 800/1000 cores: 1: 802 2: 802
Graphics:
  Device-1: AMD Wrestler [Radeon HD 6290] driver: radeon v: kernel
  Device-2: IMC Networks USB 2.0 UVC VGA WebCam type: USB driver: uvcvideo
  Display: x11 server: X.Org v: 1.21.1.3 driver: X: loaded: ati,radeon
    unloaded: fbdev,modesetting,vesa gpu: radeon resolution: 1024x600~60Hz
  OpenGL: renderer: AMD PALM (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.15.0-56-generic LLVM 13.0.1)
    v: 3.3 Mesa 22.0.5

And yes, I installed Ubuntu-MATE 22.04 LTS

This is what I changed after install:

replaced:
arctica greeter with slick-greeter
celluloid with mpv
rhythmbox with audacious

installed zswap

disabled unused ayatana indicators and plymouth splash

purged some resource hoggers (cpu and/or ram):
brisk menu
accessability options
mate-screensaver
all bluetooth related apps and libs (because this netbook has no bluetooth)
xapian
evolution
snap

added: classic-menu-bar

set: vm.swappiness = 90

This is the result after booting (free -h):

               total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           699Mi       356Mi        45Mi       7,0Mi       296Mi       236Mi
Swap:          2,2Gi       2,0Mi       2,2Gi

Then I forced it to swap out a lot:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/null bs=2G count=1

Result:

              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:           699Mi       143Mi       509Mi       0,0Ki        46Mi       486Mi
Swap:          2,2Gi       272Mi       2,0Gi

Which means it can really make some space if needed :slight_smile:

The machine is capable of running brave-browser, gimp, libre-office and FullHD H264based movies without a hitch and pretty fast (for its hardware/age) too.

It is only a bit sluggish with starting applications ( opening caja, for instance, takes about 2 seconds but after that it works painless and smooth and indeed a bit faster than on 32-bit :slight_smile: )

So, you might want to give 64-bit a chance. Maybe it'll perform miserably. But you might just lend a new life to your netbook.

I, indeed, just lend a new life to my netbook. :smiley:

Thanks, and thanks again for the incredibbly good written piece about 32-bit vs 64-bit .
This was awesome.

P.S.
for the stats:
I used to run 64-bit bodhi-linux on this machine which uses half as much ram as Ubuntu-MATE and never hits the swap.
I also tried Lubuntu on this machine but the difference in ram consumption between Lubuntu and Ubuntu-MATE is negligible.

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