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UK diy (uk.d-i-y) For the discussion of all topics related to diy (do-it-yourself) in the UK. All levels of experience and proficency are welcome to join in to ask questions or offer solutions. |
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#1
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
Hello all.
I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. What is Swap? If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful! Thanks in advance, David Paste. |
#2
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
"David Paste" wrote in message ... Hello all. I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms. Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages. What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful! |
#3
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote:
"David Paste" wrote in message ... Hello all. I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms. Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages. +1. Just kill it occasionally to reset. What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all. NT |
#4
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
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#5
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 04:22:48 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
On 26/11/15 01:05, nt wrote: On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote: "David Paste" wrote in message ... What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all. Well actually you are. Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used for ages so it has more pages for disk cache. It doesn't NEED to, but it does. Depends on your system. I don't think I've ever seen this use swap. NT |
#6
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Wed, 25 Nov 2015 20:42:07 -0800, tabbypurr wrote:
On Thursday, 26 November 2015 04:22:48 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote: On 26/11/15 01:05, nt wrote: On Thursday, 26 November 2015 00:43:47 UTC, Rod Speed wrote: "David Paste" wrote in message ... What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. Yes, but with modern multi-gig RAM you're unlikely to use swapfile space at all. Well actually you are. Sometimes the system decides to swap stuff out that hasn't been used for ages so it has more pages for disk cache. It doesn't NEED to, but it does. Depends on your system. I don't think I've ever seen this use swap. It depends on the 'swappiness' setting. I don't know what it's defaulted to in the OP's case but Linux Mint 17 uses a default value of 60 which is ok when the OS is installed onto HDD but way too high in the case of an SSD. I had to manually change from 60 to the recommended setting of 1 to minimise write/erase block wear. You can check this setting by opening a terminal and typing (or pasting) the following into the command line: cat /proc/sys/vm/swappiness the result will be displayed (a 1 to 3 digit number) at the start of the next line (values from 1 to 100). The default '60' is fine for an HDD installation but, if the OP wants to install it to an SSD, he'd be well advised to make sure it's set to 1 (I don't know how 'clever' the Ubuntu installer is regarding SSD optimisations). You can find comprehensive instructions dealing with SSD optimisations he https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/ssd I take issue with his claim that the installers know to use AF aligned partitions with SSDs. One would hope that the installer also knows to align to Erase Block boundaries. A safe bet is to 'waste' the first 2MB of disk space and start at LBA 512, a value that's guaranteed to align on EB sizes from 16KB right up to 2MB. In fact, it's also a good default with HDDs since it has been a good three decades since HDDs were small enough for a mere 2MB of 'unusable space' to matter (in the case of my very first HDD that would have wasted a massive 10% of the disk storage capacity!). By the time win7 came along, the autodetect between HDD and SSD to implement a 2MB EB alignment probably had no such 'intelligence' at all. My guess is that they simply applied a 2MB EB alignment regardless of disk type. I suspect the *nix installers do exactly the same since it doesn't harm performance on HDDs but is so critical with SSDs and a 4KB alignment is assured with all drives, even the older models not using the AF 4KB sector size. There are quite few SSD optimisations on that page. The pertinent one, btw, is number 10, "Limit swap wear". Interestingly, Firefox and Chrome/ Chromium settings get a mention too, "Limit the write actions of Firefox" and "Limit the write actions of Chrome and Chromium". The Firefox settings may also help mitigate the OP's problem (they'll be needed anyway if he upgrades to an SSD). HTH -- Johnny B Good |
#8
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 26/11/15 12:32, dennis@home wrote:
Windows allocates swap for stuff it doesn't need to page. It does it so that it can page if the memory is used. It doesn't mean it has paged it out. Check the title of the thread Dennis. What does it say? It sas Ubuntu. Did you not know that Ubuntu is not Windows, Dennis? Or did you just feel left out because you don't know anything about Ubuntu, but you think you do about Windows? -- the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is. |
#9
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
pamela wrote
Rod Speed wrote David Paste wrote I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms. Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages. What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful! I don't use Firefox but I thought all those memory leaks and resource problems it used to have years ago had been fixed. Not with browsers. They certianly needed fixing as they caused a lot of trouble for some users. Yeah, real pain with some web pages. Sad to see Firefox still has such basic problems. Yeah, it has driven the browser industry to some extent. As an aside are you still using Samsung HDDs? Yeah, still haven't bought anything else. I haven't upgraded my PC in years I did relatively recently. and still use the same HDDs I bought years ago. Yeah, I stopped buying more for the PVR files that I hadn't got around to watching or cleaning up. I bought more drives for years but decided that it didn’t make much sense and have got off my arse and have been cleaning up the PVR files to get rid of the stuff I have watched and some of the stuff that I decided I would never watch. Still have something like 10TB of stuff I likely wont ever watch. I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be. IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate. I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know if they still make HDDs without Googling. Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of their operation was bought by Seagate. |
#10
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be. IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate. I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know if they still make HDDs without Googling. Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of their operation was bought by Seagate. I use Samsung Evo Pro SSD drives, very fast and come with a 10 year guarantee, Samsung must be very confident of the longevity, which is reassuring. -- Bod --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus |
#11
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thursday, November 26, 2015 at 11:06:52 AM UTC, Bod wrote:
I use Samsung Evo Pro SSD drives What is the difference between the Pro and the Evo? (other than the grey / orange square). |
#12
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
"pamela" wrote in message ... On 10:41 26 Nov 2015, Rod Speed wrote: pamela wrote Rod Speed wrote David Paste wrote I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. Because Firefox is a steaming turd and does that on all platforms. Its mostly due to the way it handles some web pages. What is Swap? Stuff that needs more physical ram than the system has. That stuff is put in the swap file, on the drive that is used for the swap area. If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful! I don't use Firefox but I thought all those memory leaks and resource problems it used to have years ago had been fixed. Not with browsers. They certianly needed fixing as they caused a lot of trouble for some users. Yeah, real pain with some web pages. Sad to see Firefox still has such basic problems. Yeah, it has driven the browser industry to some extent. As an aside are you still using Samsung HDDs? Yeah, still haven't bought anything else. I haven't upgraded my PC in years I did relatively recently. and still use the same HDDs I bought years ago. Yeah, I stopped buying more for the PVR files that I hadn't got around to watching or cleaning up. I bought more drives for years but decided that it didn’t make much sense and have got off my arse and have been cleaning up the PVR files to get rid of the stuff I have watched and some of the stuff that I decided I would never watch. Still have something like 10TB of stuff I likely wont ever watch. Some years ago, when I was looking into glitches with my own Humax PVR, I remember some folks were increasing the recording time of their PVR by putting their own HDD. I toyed with the idea of doing it too but never got round to it. 10TB is impressive but I guess it gets swallowed up quickly if you start saving HD movies. Problem is that they aren't HD movies |-( Almost entirely docos and SD. I wonder if Samsung are still outright leaders for low-noise, reliability and value as they used to be. IMO they still are, but were taken over by Seagate. I'm so out of touch now that I wouldn't know if they still make HDDs without Googling. Not 3.5" hard drives anymore, that part of their operation was bought by Seagate. Didn't realise Samsung's HDD division had been taken over. Must have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall when Samsung's development team met Seagate's. Seagate has always been very unusual in that area. They just let the operation they take over carry on regardless and just change the name on the drives produced. That's why Seagate had so many models that look so similar in size but are quite different in detail. I haven't bothered to check what the new Seagate model numbers are because I havent needed to buy any new drives since the takeover. I guess those Samsung engineers were taught in house and must have discovered some unique methods for themselves to make their HDDs so quiet and cool. I think it was more just a different emphasis. Seagate drives in that era were notorious for getting stinking hot in comparison when run loose on the desktop. |
#13
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 25/11/15 22:54, David Paste wrote:
Hello all. I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: In the System Monitor, under the Resources tab, the second display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. What is Swap? Swapping (and Paging) is a method to free RAM but writing out idle memory pages (blocks) to disk and leaving a pointer instead. Due to the magic of virtual memory, the address map for that process's page that got swapped out is made invalid. When the process tries to access that page, the virtual address hardware in the CPU finds and invalid pointer and faults to an interrupt hander. That handler looks up the page and decides if it is a) actually invalid (the process then generally is terminated) or if the page is actually on disk. It retrieves the page from disk (and sometimes a few consecutive pages for good luck), puts them into RAM and updates the process's virtual address tables. The process is allowed to resume, retrying the failed instruction, which now works. Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. If you have boat loads of RAM you can not bother with a SWAP partition/file. However SWAP is also used by Linux for hibernating (not suspending, when the RAM is kept running but the CPU is stopped). If you could reply in the simplest way possible, I'd be grateful! Thanks in advance, David Paste. |
#14
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
In message , Tim Watts
writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work. -- Graeme |
#15
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work. It is not necessarily firefoxes fault. Its possible to write (malicious) JavaScript that simply demands more and more memory However when I showed a basic HTML5 video based web page to a friend with windows 10, Edge blue screened the computer! "I haven't seen that for a few years" he mused... -- the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is. |
#16
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message ... On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote: In message , Tim Watts writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work. It is not necessarily firefoxes fault. Sure, but the firefox derivatives dont handle those web pages very well at all. Its possible to write (malicious) JavaScript that simply demands more and more memory Yes, but in my case its just 3 of the weather pages from a single weather provider that is the problem, so it clearly isn't malicious. Just incompetent programming basically. However when I showed a basic HTML5 video based web page to a friend with windows 10, Edge blue screened the computer! "I haven't seen that for a few years" he mused... |
#17
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
"News" wrote in message ... In message , Tim Watts writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) I haven't gone that far. I do still use Pale Moon for the main news page and for 5 of the weather pages I have running all the time. for Chrome Yeah, that's what I use for the 3 problem weather pages that see all the firefox type browsers fall on their face quite quickly. Its also what I normally use on the iphone too. Don't use it for everything tho, it's a very minimal browser with no real session manager at all. because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work. Don't get that result on the main PC which has a lot more horsepower than a netbook, but I do eventually see even the most basic clicking on links and buttons in other windows just stop working until I kill the problem Pale Moon process. Only get that with 3 of the weather pages tho. Those just show the radar and cloud pages as well as the main weather page from that weather provider, so I only run those when a front is coming over and I want to see when its about to rain like hell and produce heavy rain and hail etc. |
#18
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote:
In message , Tim Watts writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I guess - I don't do windows But the OS principles are the same and by its name, I suspect its the same. I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, Not probably - it's having a stroll, rather than a sprint but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. You need a windows person. Sometimes, it's better to page out large amounts of dead memory that is never used (unused lumps of data or code in a program, or at least "unused" in the context of what you are doing right now) and use the space of disk buffers (cache). There's also a method of paging that does not use the pagefile - at least on linux. If you load a program and all its linked code libraries, the whole lot gets mapped into the process's virtual address space. However, it tends to not get read in until needed - this happens by the program and the libraries being mapped as mini pagefiles into the address maps, but not actually physically read in. Program goes to the "print" routines (say), trips a page fault - that causes the same paging code in the kernel to look for the page file blocks (that this time happen to be the program or library file) and read them in, resuming the program when done. In the same way, not-recently-used blocks of the program can simply be dropped from RAM (no need to write out - code is read-only, we already have the original in the file) if the system thinks it needs RAM for something else. I have no idea if Windows employs that strategy - it's always been my observation that linux handles memory better than windows, but that's a) because I hate Windows, b) may be less true with the modern versions. The fun happens if the kernel needs a page of RAM for its own use, hasn't got any spare and needs to run the pager to free some, except the pager needs some extra RAM to do its work. Real problem - solved in part with the concept of "kernel non paged pool" (locked pages of RAM that cannot be paged out). Apologies for stealing this Ubuntu thread. Just to say that I too was a dedicated Firefox user, but have now dumped it (and Pale Moon) for Chrome because it eventually caused this little Netbook to freeze. Not BSOD - it just froze and nothing except the 'off' button and reboot would work. |
#19
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thu, 26 Nov 2015 10:51:19 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:
On 26/11/15 08:19, News wrote: In message , Tim Watts writes Strictly, "paging" is the above and "swapping" is when the whole idle process is written out to disk. But in practise the concept and effects are much the same. Paging is what Windows shows as Page File Usage, or PF Usage? I guess - I don't do windows But the OS principles are the same and by its name, I suspect its the same. I do look at the Performance tab of Task Manager, but don't pretend to understand exactly what I'm looking at. Currently, my CPU usage is hovering around 10% which is probably OK, Not probably - it's having a stroll, rather than a sprint but PF Usage is 2.42GB which is probably not so good. You need a windows person. Sometimes, it's better to page out large amounts of dead memory that is never used (unused lumps of data or code in a program, or at least "unused" in the context of what you are doing right now) and use the space of disk buffers (cache). There's also a method of paging that does not use the pagefile - at least on linux. If you load a program and all its linked code libraries, the whole lot gets mapped into the process's virtual address space. However, it tends to not get read in until needed - this happens by the program and the libraries being mapped as mini pagefiles into the address maps, but not actually physically read in. Program goes to the "print" routines (say), trips a page fault - that causes the same paging code in the kernel to look for the page file blocks (that this time happen to be the program or library file) and read them in, resuming the program when done. In the same way, not-recently-used blocks of the program can simply be dropped from RAM (no need to write out - code is read-only, we already have the original in the file) if the system thinks it needs RAM for something else. I have no idea if Windows employs that strategy - it's always been my observation that linux handles memory better than windows, but that's a) because I hate Windows, b) may be less true with the modern versions. My impression, as a long time user of win2k and repairer of subsequent ****tier versions, is that they both use, more or less, the same paging algorithms. The major difference being that *all* versions of NT based windows use a page *file* rather than the higher performance swap *partition*. What's worse are the invented pagefile options available of which the worst one (adjust pagefile size automatically - on the fly, both upwards and downwards), is the default setting on new installs - including every major OEM setup I've ever seen. The other options are "System Managed" (whatever the **** that means) and setting a minimum and a maximum size limit (there may be another one but I'm just remembering this off the top of my head). On an HDD installation, this default is really bad news since the constant resizing activity magnifies the effect of file fragmentation as well as adding extra overhead to the paging algorithm. If you don't want your windows PC to become old and arthritic before its time, you need to figure out what size pagefile you want and set the min and max values to that size as the very first configuration change after doing a clean install. This then gives you a (possibly completely - but no guarantees on this) unfragmented fixed size pagefile which won't aggravate the inevitable file fragmentation activity from ordinary everyday use, further aggravated by the endless OS file churn due to a never ending stream of updates and patches. The use of SSDs has rather sidelined this deliberate misuse of the paging mechanism to effect premature system performance loss in the name of boosting the sales of new PC kit (it's the "Wintel Effect"). The effect of file fragmentation on system performance is all but eliminated in the case of an SSD installation so this deliberate 'accelerated aging' policy no longer works for "Wintel" (it's still a good idea to set a fixed size pagefile, if only to pep up the paging algorithm a little). I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap partition space. Luckily, you can over-ride the default automated partitioning scheme used by the installer but it needs some familiarity and an understanding of partitioning to get this reasonably right. There is usually a "Guided Partitioning" option in modern day distro's installers but I can't recall whether it offers to create a dedicated swap partition or not since I use manual control to get what I want (mind you, for a lot more reasons than just to make sure a dedicated swap partition is created). The fun happens if the kernel needs a page of RAM for its own use, hasn't got any spare and needs to run the pager to free some, except the pager needs some extra RAM to do its work. Real problem - solved in part with the concept of "kernel non paged pool" (locked pages of RAM that cannot be paged out). I've edited win2k's registry to stop it paging kernel ram space along with quite few other tuning tricks in the dim and distant past. If I had to do a scratch install of win2k on real hardware, there's quite a bunch of things I'd have to research yet again. :-( -- Johnny B Good |
#20
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 28/11/15 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:
I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap partition space. Well I dont remember deliberetaly creating it, but this linux mint (Ubuntu derivative) has a swap partition. -- the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is. |
#21
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 28/11/15 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:
I'm rather disappointed to see that Ubuntu and its derivatives resorting to the madness of a single huge partition for the /boot and /home folders and using the creation of a swap file instead of a dedicated swap partition space. Luckily, you can over-ride the default automated partitioning scheme used by the installer but it needs some familiarity and an understanding of partitioning to get this reasonably right. That's just stupid - and forgoes all the good unix principles. Me: I use either: /boot, / and /srv for data (and /home is mapped in the last one) or /boot and LVM for everything else, which makes new installs alongside the old easy. I have not set up SWAP for some time now - having plenty of RAM. My VMWare servers at work, all 190 odd no not use SWAP either[1] *unless* it is probably of benefit (like a server once a day does a big batch job, then quiesces for the rest of the time). [1] Because all that swapping is being concentrated down onto one poor SAN group. I find it better to over allocate RAM a bit and let VMWare do its bubble and borrow thing between VMs. |
#22
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 28/11/2015 02:09, Johnny B Good wrote:
What's worse are the invented pagefile options available of which the worst one (adjust pagefile size automatically - on the fly, both upwards and downwards), is the default setting on new installs - including every major OEM setup I've ever seen. The other options are "System Managed" (whatever the **** that means) and setting a minimum and a maximum size limit (there may be another one but I'm just remembering this off the top of my head). On an HDD installation, this default is really bad news since the constant resizing activity magnifies the effect of file fragmentation as well as adding extra overhead to the paging algorithm. The other day I was somewhat surprised to find a PC with about 40 GB of page file. I doubt anyone would have anticipated that high a usage - so in that particular case, allowing it to grow might have prevented the system falling over. (Though whether that would have been just once, or repeatedly, is difficult to guess.) However, given the scale of hard disc drives, even allowing 100 GB dedicated wouldn't have much impact on most modern machines not using SSDs. (Also questions your suggestion that the default OEM install would end up adjusting the page file size downwards. This was a default OEM install. Page file still vaster than needed.) I have many times set up a partition exclusively for paging (in Windows). From memory, if you have two page files, traffic goes to the one with most space left. So a small C: drive page file just to get going and a large paging partition ends up using the partition for most swaps. -- Rod |
#23
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Wednesday, 25 November 2015 22:54:23 UTC, David Paste wrote:
display down is "Memory and Swap History". I understand that Memory is displaying the amount of RAM being used, but why does it slowly increase when using Firefox? Even when just one tab is open. Firefox is a pig with ram. Even just lion there it uses elephantine amounts of it. Antyway, I just kill it when it gets to a gig - one day I expect the future equivalent of FF will use an even wilder amount, like a pet of ram. NT |
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 25/11/15 22:54, David Paste wrote:
Hello all. I have recently installed Ubuntu 15.10 and after past failed attempts at adopting Ubuntu, this time it is going very well (I'm even considering buying an SSD for the machine). I have some questions though: [snip questions I can't answer] Thanks in advance, David Paste. I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full install of ubuntu. An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a very low price thanks to a bit of diy. I want to upgrade the SSD drive (it's only 16Gig) and bought a cheap chinese drive which doesn't work for reasons I don't understand, so beware. The chinese SSD is now in a case so I can use it as a 120Gb pen drive and it seems to work fine like that. Best wishes, Tim W |
#25
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote:
I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums, the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their heart's content. There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's called, but it's not so important at the moment. I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same fonts, by the way! The most important thing I did to make the desktop more comfortable was to change the desktop background to my favourite picture of the night sky! ha, simple things, eh? I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full install of Ubuntu. Was that a difficult thing to do? Did you have to fettle any of the innards - I have some vague notion that newer computers have a special BIOS that can really bugger up swapping OSes. An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a very low price thanks to a bit of diy. What is the screen like? There was a Chromebook which was renowned for it's high quality screen. Cheers! |
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 01/12/15 14:54, David Paste wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote: I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums, the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their heart's content. That's why mots people run linux MINT. Its ubuntu with a better desktop - MATE and Cinnamon are very XP - Like There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's called, but it's not so important at the moment. That's a deep and tricky problem. A lot de3opends on how the drivers actually behave. I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same fonts, by the way! Hmm. I have pilfered so many fonts from so many places its hard to see whats what. -- the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is. |
#27
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 15:18:12 UTC, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
That's why mots people run linux MINT. Its ubuntu with a better desktop - MATE and Cinnamon are very XP - Like Yeah, my friend is very particular about things like that. As much as he can he has the same layout and same apps on Linux and Windows. I put it down to the sheer amount of weed he smokes and the subsequent need to not make things unnecessarily tricky when switching machines! I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's called, but it's not so important at the moment. That's a deep and tricky problem. A lot de3opends on how the drivers actually behave. Yeah, it is becoming apparent the more I read! But I am sure nibbling at it will eventually get rid of the problem! Hmm. I have pilfered so many fonts from so many places its hard to see whats what. You need better fonts then ;-) |
#28
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote:
There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine. Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. Andy |
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
Vir Campestris wrote:
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote: There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine. Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. So one edge is longer than the other edge? Must be a strange monitor! -- Chris Green · |
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
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#32
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 01/12/15 21:33, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote: There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine. Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. Some plonker has decreed that the task bar here is on top,. and there is an autohiding menu bar down the right hand side. Oh that was me. For some reaoson Linux MATE allows me to make that choice... Andy -- the biggest threat to humanity comes from socialism, which has utterly diverted our attention away from what really matters to our existential survival, to indulging in navel gazing and faux moral investigations into what the world ought to be, whilst we fail utterly to deal with what it actually is. |
#33
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 01/12/15 21:33, Vir Campestris wrote:
On 01/12/2015 14:54, David Paste wrote: There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I use Ubuntu on my work machine. Corporate choice, not mine. Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. Andy Can you not alter the desktop settings and drag it to where you want it? |
#34
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Wed, 02 Dec 2015 07:30:00 +0000, Tim Watts wrote:
Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. Can you not alter the desktop settings and drag it to where you want it? Yes, you can - albeit with the installation of a couple of additional packages from the repo. A quick google finds all. |
#35
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 02/12/2015 07:30, Tim Watts wrote:
Can you not alter the desktop settings and drag it to where you want it? Nope. https://bugs.launchpad.net/unity/+bug/668415 Andy |
#36
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Tuesday, 1 December 2015 21:33:52 UTC, Vir Campestris wrote:
Some plonker in Ubuntu has decreed that the task bar will be on the left hand side of the monitor. That's the long edge on mine, and it takes up a stupid amount of space. Daft, isn't it? Luckily for me I quite like the vertical menu bar on the left, but it should be moveable out of the box for others that want something else. |
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:54:42 -0800, David Paste wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote: I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums, the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. A laudable desire imo but I can't imagine he'd have been too impressed with the reality. Each to their own. I can't help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their heart's content. I chose Linux Mint KDE because I read that it approximated the win2k desktop (or could be configured to do so). I'm afraid to say it has absolutely no resemblance to the classic win2k desktop nor its 'feel' and I haven't been able to track down a 'Howto' in regard of achieving this happy state of affairs. :-( The best I can say is that it's "usable" if you're prepared to put up with the rather clumsy UI that seems to owe more to Vista / win7 UIs than it does to the much cleaner and efficient classic desktops of win95 and win2k. Despite the many (inexcusable imo) shortcomings with most *nix distro DEs, I put up with them since the MSFT alternative is totally unthinkable. I think Charleton Heston's character expresses almost the same sentiment in the final beach scene of "Planet of The Apes" as mine when I look at all the nonsense going on with windows 10 today (and the backporting of the same rubbish into win7). I often used to see this quotation used in at least one regular usenet poster's sig file: "One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, One OS to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them"[1] This hearkened back to winXP which seemed to be a spot on observation[2] of MSFT's strategy for World Domination. Today, with the advent of Vista / win7 / win8 / win8.1 and finally, win 10, such a comparison seems barely adequate to describe the truth of the matter. [1] Based on the "Ring Verse" from "The Lord of The Rings" which, in its original form, goes like this: "One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them" [2] XP was, and still is imho, a Festering Pile of ****e. Win2k was the last of the user orientated OSes. WinXP was merely the first tentative step into the rapid descent into Consumerisation Hell we now call windows 10. -- Johnny B Good |
#38
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thursday, 3 December 2015 20:08:09 UTC, Johnny B Good wrote:
A laudable desire imo but I can't imagine he'd have been too impressed with the reality. He still has it. Uses the linux laptop for general use, has a Windows 7 laptop for video games. "One OS to rule them all, One OS to find them, One OS to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them" I am not a professional computerist, just a lowly end user for 'the usual' nonsense. I have said for a long time - and still am of the opinion - that all OSes are equally as awkward to use. They try; they get close; they fail. Such is life! ;-) |
#39
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On 01/12/15 14:54, David Paste wrote:
On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote: I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums, the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their heart's content. There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's called, but it's not so important at the moment. I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same fonts, by the way! The most important thing I did to make the desktop more comfortable was to change the desktop background to my favourite picture of the night sky! ha, simple things, eh? I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full install of Ubuntu. Was that a difficult thing to do? Did you have to fettle any of the innards - I have some vague notion that newer computers have a special BIOS that can really bugger up swapping OSes. An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a very low price thanks to a bit of diy. What is the screen like? There was a Chromebook which was renowned for it's high quality screen. Cheers! The chromebook (an Acer c720) - not entirely straightforward to replace the OS but there are good instructions online, and isos prepared specifically for the task. It isn't a uefi problem but it's a bios written only for booting chromeOS and requires a work-around. Since ChromeOS is linux based all the hardware works. There is no need to open the back unless you want to put a larger ssd in. totally optional. The screen seems good as long as it is facing you directly, not at an angle. My previous expeditions into linux use foundered on the lack of linux software, not on the os or desktop. I don't work with CAD files any more or sketchup and never cared for MSOffice, plus opensource software gets better and better so I may be happy. Then again who knows when I find I have to do something just a bit clever like extract vector graphics from a pdf or something I might be trying to get wine working. Good luck! Tim W |
#40
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O/T: Ubuntu questions.
On Thursday, 3 December 2015 23:14:49 UTC, Tim W wrote:
On 01/12/15 14:54, David Paste wrote: On Friday, November 27, 2015 at 8:59:54 AM UTC, Tim W wrote: I also am testing linux for about the 10th time and I think I am going to stick with it this time and finally rid myself of Windows. Ubuntu has got a lot better with each release, while windows is slightly worse. When I read up about Ubuntu on the various websites and forums, the biggest gripe I hear is about the use of Unity as a desktop. I like it though! I have a friend who chooses Mint Linux because he wants his desktop to look like Win 2000. Each to their own. I can't help but think that the lack of a consistent desktop has managed to put many people off Linux in the past. Majority of people won't care, I'd bet, but those that do can modify their own to their heart's content. There are a few silly things in Ubuntu that I found not idiosyncratic but down-right annoying: the main one being that clicking an application's button on the vertical sidebar didn't minimise the open application. I sorted the fix out and on the way found out that that was apparently a deliberate choice made by some honcho in one of the companies. Silliness. I am still trying to sort out the scuppering of the WiFi when the laptop comes out of hibernation or suspend or whatever it's called, but it's not so important at the moment. I also copied a load of fonts over from the Windows computer which helps with many little display quirks, one for instance, the display of text on TNP's Gridwatch website. It now displays perfectly in FireFox on Ubuntu using the Windows-pilfered fonts. It doesn't display correctly on FF under Win 8.1 using the same fonts, by the way! The most important thing I did to make the desktop more comfortable was to change the desktop background to my favourite picture of the night sky! ha, simple things, eh? I am using an acer chromebook off ebay with chrome os replaced by a full install of Ubuntu. Was that a difficult thing to do? Did you have to fettle any of the innards - I have some vague notion that newer computers have a special BIOS that can really bugger up swapping OSes. An excellent slim, light, portable notebook for a very low price thanks to a bit of diy. What is the screen like? There was a Chromebook which was renowned for it's high quality screen. Cheers! The chromebook (an Acer c720) - not entirely straightforward to replace the OS but there are good instructions online, and isos prepared specifically for the task. It isn't a uefi problem but it's a bios written only for booting chromeOS and requires a work-around. Since ChromeOS is linux based all the hardware works. There is no need to open the back unless you want to put a larger ssd in. totally optional. The screen seems good as long as it is facing you directly, not at an angle. My previous expeditions into linux use foundered on the lack of linux software, not on the os or desktop. I don't work with CAD files any more or sketchup and never cared for MSOffice, plus opensource software gets better and better so I may be happy. Then again who knows when I find I have to do something just a bit clever like extract vector graphics from a pdf or something I might be trying to get wine working. Good luck! Tim W Cheers Tim! My main reservations now are a lack of a program equivalent to EAC for ripping CDs. I know there are native alternatives, but they either have crap UIs or flat-out don't have the same capabilities that EAC have. I could run it through WINE, apparently. I'll have a look at that. |
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