Finding out what each KDE background process does?

Beginner

Sunday, February 2nd 2003, 11:39pm

Hi everyone,

I recently switched to KDE from GNOME and am VERY glad I did. Not only is the eye candy much better - especially the fonts - but the amount of custom configuration possible is AWESOME. KDE seems like a real grass roots community aimed at developing something together.

Anyway one thing I have noticed is that KDE uses up a significant amount of greater RAM on my 512 RAM system than GNOME does. It's currently using about 449 MB!! Interestingly enough it stays at that level more or less even when I open an additional 4-5 more Konquerer web browser windows.

I am wondering though how to find out what each of the processes that are showing up using "top" do? Like kded, knotify, and kdesktop (to name a few)? They are each using about 10 MB of memory but there are quite a few of them.

Short of doing a search on Google for each name and seeing what comes up is there some help page or other resource within KDE or the Internet that will give me the heads up on each process? I would like to cut out the fat and close down those that I don't need. Based on what I've seen the biggest disadvantage to using KDE is that it needs so much RAM! Even to run just a couple of Terminal windows and nothing more.

I'm fortunate to be able to have so much RAM but there are a lot people that can't afford it.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Carlos

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leftbas

Trainee

Posts: 58

Location: Los Angeles, Ca, USA

Occupation: Senior Desktop Support Analyst

2

Tuesday, February 4th 2003, 4:58pm

Background processes

I'm pretty new to Linux/KDE, so aside from the process viewer (press <Ctrl><Esc> to activate), I don't know how else to get the information you need. Moreover, I question how much memory you say KDE is consuming, because I have only 320MB total in my rig, and have plenty of memory leftover for running things like OpenOffice, which itself is reported to use a lot of RAM.

I agree with you, tho, on the high level of customization of the interface. It may be as memory efficient as the CLI, but it's sure as hell a lot easier and a lot more fun.

Hope that sheds some light on your dilemma.

In retrospect, everything is funny.

-- Unknown

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dimitri

Trainee

Posts: 156

Occupation: Engineer

3

Tuesday, February 4th 2003, 9:57pm

Hi,
konqueror uses a kind of preloading. If you open and close a konqueror window it is not deleted in memory, but used if you open another konqueror window. You can change this (I don't know the english expresion, but it's in the konqueror config Dialog, where you can reduce the memory use of konquere (never, local browsing, web browsing, always)
I have a notebook with 128MB Ram and KDE 3.0.4 and it runs pretty fast. So don't worry about that. perhaps KDE just uses the memory you have as buffer (like linux itself).

Dim

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Unregistered

4

Thursday, February 6th 2003, 9:11am

Thanks for your helpful tips.

I guess I will just have to look up each process that shows up under "top" on Google or something and slowly but surely build up a working knowledge of what does what.

As for memory usage it's still a hog but like you said I might be able to get it to lower it's memory use by altering things in the config files. I'm still new to Linux so I think I'll stay away from that for a while. I got so many other config files I am having to deal with right now that I better slow down a bit

.

KDE has never peaked out my RAM so I guess I am okay but it sure does use a lot of memory (I have 512 RAM on my system).

Thanks again.

Carlos

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dimitri

Trainee

Posts: 156

Occupation: Engineer

5

Thursday, February 6th 2003, 12:39pm

Hi,
and again a point: Linux uses all free memory as buffer. So don't be shocked If you notice that Linux itself uses all you memory. It's Ok. If a programm needs some of course it gets as much of these "buffer"as it needs.

Dim

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Unregistered

6

Thursday, February 6th 2003, 10:45pm

Hi Dimitri,

Only thing is that I am comparing KDE and GNOME running essentially the same programs under their respective desktops. Using the same Linux kernel. Namely the one that comes with Redhat 8.0.

If you open up KDE and run Opera, Gentoo (file explorer), SciTE (text editor), the system monitor (runs a GNOME version under both KDE and GNOME), and a couple of shells (the redhat shell under GNOME and the KDE shell under KDE) and then compare the memory use you should see KDE use up a significantly greater amount of memory than GNOME does.

If your system responds as mine does (Pentium III 450 Mhz with 512 RAM).

Making it more likely that KDE will slow down when it is forced to use the swap file on systems that have less RAM than I do.

Both GNOME and KDE use the same kernel so I doubt that it's the Linux kernel using up more in the way of buffer memory under KDE than under GNOME. Of course I am rather new to Linux so I could be wrong

.

Anyway I have settled on KDE and will be working with local residents to start using it in place of their older Windows OS's. Though I will definitely encourage them to have at least 512 RAM if they are to enjoy the experience without too much tinkering inside config files

.

Carlos

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dimitri

Trainee

Posts: 156

Occupation: Engineer

7

Friday, February 7th 2003, 7:44am

Hi,

Quoted

up KDE and run Opera, Gentoo (file explorer)

Hmm, a file explorer named gentoo?? My distri ist gentoo. Is there also a file explorer with this name?
I have a XP 1600 with 768MB RAM. I will reallay have to look at thar today when I'm at home.
But I also tried KDE 2.2.2 on a Pentium 200 with 64 MB and of course it took a time until ist was loaded (slow HD) but then it was quite usable. Today even mor, because using gcc 3.2 and glibc 2.3 /prelinking gave a bin performance boost to KDE.

Dim

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Luke-Jr

Beginner

Posts: 1

8

Saturday, February 8th 2003, 2:11am

Quoted

Original von Anonymous

If you open up KDE and run Opera, Gentoo (file explorer), SciTE (text editor), the system monitor (runs a GNOME version under both KDE and GNOME), and a couple of shells (the redhat shell under GNOME and the KDE shell under KDE) and then compare the memory use you should see KDE use up a significantly greater amount of memory than GNOME does.

Sounds like you're running all-GNOME apps when you're running GNOME and both GNOME and KDE apps when you're running KDE. Try running some KDE apps in GNOME and compare the memory usage.

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aseigo

Beginner

Posts: 19

9

Saturday, February 15th 2003, 2:56am

measuring memory

first off: hello from Alberta! i'm in calgary, so i can't be all that far away

regarding the memory usage, as someone previously mentioned if you run GNOME or other non-KDE apps in KDE, your system will load all of those libraries into memory as well, and that memory will not be shared with the KDE apps (or vice versa) since they are different libraries. this is a great way to run up your memory usage.

but measuring memory under Linux is not easy. the old (and accurate) saw is "top lies". because KDE apps share several large libraries, it can seem like they are using more memory than they are. for instance, right now i look at dcopserver which is a KDE background process running on my system right now. it says it's using 20Mb of RAM, which is a lot for a simple backgroudn proces! but that includes ALL the KDE libs as well, which are shared between all KDE apps. if i look to the number just to the right (in the RSS column) it shows dcopserver really only uses 1Mb of RAM . doing a `cat /proc/30083/status` shows quite clealry that the libraries account for 18Mb of the 20Mb of RAM it's reported as using, with the rest being mostly RSS and DATA (30083 is the PID of dcopserver on my box right now)

moreover, Red Hat 8.0 didn't do a great job of delivering a well put together KDE. i don't know how much that may or may not have to do with the memory usage you may or may not be seeing, but using 450 MB is way more than KDE really "needs". in fact, i run it on laptops w/64Mb of RAM and it only goes a few dozen MB into swap.

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