libre

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Welcome to libre

A comm dedicated to the fight for free software with an anti-capitalist perspective.

The struggle for libre computing cannot be disentangled from other forms of socialist reform. One must be willing to reject proprietary software as fiercely as they would reject capitalism. Luckily, we are not alone.

libretion

Resources

Free Software, Free Society provides an excellent primer in the origins and theory around free software and the GNU Project, the pioneers of the Free Software Movement.
Switch to GNU/Linux! If you're still using Windows in $CURRENT_YEAR, flock to Linux Mint!; Apple Silicon users will want to check out Asahi Linux.

Rules

Be on topic: Posts should be about free software and other hacktivst struggles. Topics about general tech news should be in the technology comm or programming comm. That doesn't mean all posts have to be serious though, memes are welcome!
Avoid using misleading terms/speading misinformation: Here's a great article about what those words are. In short, try to avoid parroting common Techbro lingo and topics.
Avoid being confrontational: People are in different stages of liberating their computing, focus on informing rather than accusing. Debatebro nonsense is not tolerated.
All site-wide rules still apply

Artwork

Xenia was meant to be an alternative to Tux and was created (licensed under CC0) by Alan Mackey in 1996.
Comm icon (of Xenia the Linux mascot) was originally created by @ioletsgo
Comm banner is a close up of "Dorlotons Degooglisons" by David Revoy (CC-BY 4.0) for Framasoft

founded 3 years ago

MODERATORS

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How to lower ram usage on Arch ? (hexbear.net)

submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

9 comments fedilink hide all child comments

What's the lowest ram consumption i can expect on Arch ?

im using Arch with the stock kernel + dwm/st + pure alsa + ~700 packages(~250mb on idle, dwm activated).

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

There's probably lower hanging fruit than this, but if you are aiming for the lowest RAM use possible, don't require compatibility with third party binaries, and don't expect to exceed 4GB, running an i686 build will reduce binary size and memory consumption across the board. There is an unofficial 32 bit version of ArchLinux available (https://archlinux32.org/). Never tried it myself though.

Compiling a custom kernel and vastly limiting the number of enabled features can make an impact. If 250MB is too high, even the choice of filesystem (and number of filesystems mounted) might have considerable implications on memory usage.

The main sticking point is that you are stuck with the binaries Arch ships. Perhaps you can replace some with leaner alternatives versions provided in AUR, but the key to reducing RAM use below where you're at now is going to be completely disabling optional compile-time features.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

32 bit Arch sounds sweaty as fuck, no thanks

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I would never go back unless I absolutely needed to get something running on a 2003 Dell or something. I just retired a system with 32GB for one with 128GB lmao.