Xfce Forum

twlxfce

Member

Registered: 2007-02-02

Posts: 5

Minimum and memory

I never use my "desktop" and I rarely use the GUI file manager. The panel is nice. What parts of xfce can I disable? I'm under the impression that disabling anything not in the config is done by killing the process, then saving the session. Thunar would go, as well as the desktop (if that won't break anything). What else is safe to run without? My usual apps are Ffox, Tbird, XMMS, emacs, and some terminals.

On a related note, while xfce has fewer processes running than KDE, the memory usage is about the same. I've got around 200Mb RAM in use with 5Kb or 10Kb free. Clearly most of that is VSS. Is there something I can do/set that will make X.org use less RAM under xfce? I've already change the number of ttys to only 2.

Thanks,
Tom

Nick

Dev

From: ~

Registered: 2005-02-17

Posts: 1,144

Website

Re: Minimum and memory

If you really want to save memory, ditch ff and tb  ^-^

---

G+ Profile - Ohloh Profile

twlxfce

Member

Registered: 2007-02-02

Posts: 5

Re: Minimum and memory

Firefox and Thunderbird are piggy, but they are also portable, documented, standard, feature rich, regularly updated, and more or less bug free. Besides, each of them has an RSS memory footprint about the same as Thunar, and their VIRT is smaller than X.org. I use Ff and Tb constantly. I might use Thunar once a month.

I can't find docs or examples on a minimum memory model for XFCE. I also can't find anything that even suggests which components XFCE will run without.

(Things are no better with KDE docs/forums; haven't looked for Gnome, but I chilled on Gnome a looong time ago - way too bloated and feature-poor).

It isn't just XFCE that I'm interested in. I'd love to get rid of 3 or 4 daemon/support apps that KDE runs too, and which I never seem to need.

As an interesting aside, Emacs which is touted as the perennial pig has just about the smallest memory footprint of anything I run.

Nick

Dev

From: ~

Registered: 2005-02-17

Posts: 1,144

Website

Re: Minimum and memory

Well, it's recommended to keep xfwm4 running and xfce-mcs-manager for the xsettings, but everything else can be killed (xfce4-panel, xfdeskop, Thunar)

---

G+ Profile - Ohloh Profile

twlxfce

Member

Registered: 2007-02-02

Posts: 5

Re: Minimum and memory

Cool. I kept the panel since I need that.

I made a synopsis for anyone that didn't grasp the details:

http://defindit.com/readme_files/xfce_hints.html

I would still like to get X to use less memory. Any hints would be welcome.

MagnusBerg

Member

Registered: 2004-12-17

Posts: 46

Re: Minimum and memory

Here is a interesting Desktop memory usage benchmark (2006, KDE/GNOME/Xfce/WindowMaker). One thing is for sure: Avoid Open Office!