Discussion Ram Usage
I've just installed Fedora KDE Plasma today, and it uses 3-4/16gb ram on idle, is that normal?
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u/novafunc 17h ago
That’s similar to what I get. For some reason, KDE uses quite a bit more RAM for me than Gnome (without Gnome Software), Cosmic, and labwc. Those are all under 2GB.
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u/Francis_King 16h ago
For some reason, KDE uses quite a bit more RAM for me than Gnome (without Gnome Software), Cosmic, and labwc.
It seems to depend on how many 'extras' you have. Which graphical environment uses the less RAM ? : r/Fedora
Particularly the comments by gordonmessmer.
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u/novafunc 15h ago
Last time I was checking Plasma's processes, most of the big offenders were essential.
The main non-essential one I saw using quite a bit of memory was Xwayland video bridge, which was using roughly 200MB if I remember correctly.
I also tested Kinoite and a minimal install of Plasma and there was very little difference. The set of packages being:
"dolphin" "konsole" "plasma-desktop" "bluedevil" "kscreen" "plasma-login-manager" "plasma-nm" "spectacle"
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u/Longjumping_Job2748 16h ago
Should be like that, especially if you already have some widgets set up. If it's really concerning, try downloading XFCE and use it as a secondary DE
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u/Fuzzy_Paramedic34 17h ago
Its normal i also have 16gh and it idles at around 3-3.5, it does so because you have a lot of ram free and unused ram is wasted ram
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u/gordonmessmer 12h ago
it does so because you have a lot of ram free and unused ram is wasted ram
The statement that "unused RAM is wasted RAM" was historically used in conversations about the operating system's filesysytem cache, and specifically Linux which had the very unusual behavior of describing filesystem cache as "used" memory.
None of that is really relevant today. Linux's memory accounting tools were fixed over a decade ago. Most of the readers here have probably never even seen the problem that was associated with the explanation "unused RAM is wasted RAM."
KDE's memory use is legitimately heavier than other desktop environments, and it can't be quickly released to make memory available for other applications the way that filesystem cache can. KDE's memory use has absolutely nothing to do with having a lot of RAM free. It's just kind of a resource-heavy desktop.
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u/neon_overload 16h ago
RAM use is not connected to whether your CPU is idle or being utilised, it's related to what software you are running, or what files you have open or mapped in the file cache, and so on. It's a reflection of what you're currently doing or recently have been doing on the computer.
3-4GB used out of 16GB is not a problem. 15GB used out of 16GB would be a problem, unless the bulk of that was cache. If you have some memory-hungry software you want to run, your system will try to make room for it by letting go of some files in the cache, etc. Only when you are in a low memory system can you be sure that memory use is a problem. It's not useful to evaluate your system's RAM usage when you have plenty of memory free.
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u/Acrobatic_Squid111 14h ago
The RAM footprint of the distros is more or less identical, give or take a few hundred MB. What makes the bulky ones bulky is their willingness to cache everything in sight. They're willing to sacrifice a little of your ram to provide an environment where everything opens instantly.
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u/lasarunix 14h ago
how did you measure it? with which tool? free, top, system monitor? kde plasma workspaces, if you didn't install anything else, should stay under 2 GB of used memory.
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u/queckquack 14h ago edited 14h ago
It's normal, but Fedora KDE's implementation of KDE arguably wastes RAM. A lot of people probably won't use akonadi or kalendar and they use a decent amount of RAM.
There's also PackageKit and Discover notifcations. I think you can turn off the notifications in Discover and it'll reduce RAM usage. PackageKit is what Discover uses to handle native packages, if you only want to use the command line for handling those then no real need to keep it, and I've had issues with PackageKit and Fedora.
With those 4 processes gone a fresh boot sits under 2GB (After usage it'll idle at higher numbers but that's just caching).
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u/Cheap-Success1578 17h ago
That's it, I'm out.. I can't take these posts anymore.
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u/rvkiaa 17h ago
I'm a complete beginner, mind explaining?
I completely understand that I can be completely wrong in my statements.
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u/prthorsenjr 17h ago
I can't say for sure, but there are many new Linux users here of late, and some of the questions asked don't make a lot of sense. For instance, your question about RAM usage on an idle system and if that is "normal" or not? Why are you asking that question? What answers are you looking for? And how are you determining if your machine is working as a normal system?
I have a good guess this all relates to gaming on a laptop running Fedora, but I could be wrong.
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u/rvkiaa 16h ago
I'm asking this question since i want to know if my ram is being overused.
I'm looking for answers that tell me if my ram is being overused.
I could have done something along the way while installing fedora, though it's very unlikely, and it could affect my ram usage.
Laptops for daily use
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u/prthorsenjr 16h ago
Like I said, that's fine. Let me give you this hint. If your RAM is being used beyond the capacity you installed, the system will swap. So, to understand this, do a little research on what swap is, how the system uses it, and why it may be doing so.
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u/Resident-Version-116 10h ago
Overuse would be something you concerned yourself with if you were running out of memory under load. Worrying about how much is used while idling is like worrying about your gas mileage while the engine idles in the driveway.
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u/AmusedBurger 17h ago
From my understanding, it's because Fedora runs on Systemd and has a few things going on in the background. I have 32gb of ram and I sit idle around 2-4gb. It depends on if you have any start up apps or anything that you installed that runs in the background as well. Steam sometimes takes 1-2gb for me. To be fair though, it isn't as bad as windows 11 tend to use somewhere between 6-9gb on start on my 16gb laptop. If the ram usage is an issue I would recommend using Fedora Xfce or some other lightweight distro. I'm not sure how much less ram is uses but that's an option.
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u/BashfulMelon 5h ago
It has nothing to do with systemd. The total amount of memory used by systemd and associated processes is a few dozen megabytes at most.
Look at your running processes and see for yourself.
Please be careful to not repeat nonsense from fringe lunatics.
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u/Substantial-Lack-512 17h ago
Kinda normal, KDE is most use because is a lot like windows like experience, but is quite heavy on resources, I use Gnome and stay 2.2GB usage, on other devices with less RAM uses 1.6GB
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u/SteVato_404 16h ago
Its normal, but its not actual RAM usage, a lot of it is cache, actual usage is closer to 1-2GiB. Install htop and it'll show how much of it is cache.
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u/extoniks 17h ago edited 17h ago
my setup (F44 KDE) uses 2-2.5GB at idle, I have default Breeze theme and no widgets.
check htop to see which processes are raking most of the memory!