This is how much memory my laptop is using...WITH NOTHING RUNNING

Definitely recommend Mint, amazing OS. I've also put lubuntu (light weight Ubuntu) onto my mum's netbook as that had xp on there running like shit. It's like a new experience for her, she can't believe how well/fast it runs now. Linux ain't the hardcore geek OS it once was any more.

 

If you're wanting to dabble around in Linux, I second the use of Mint as a first stop. If you have a spindle of CD/DVD's or a loose thumb drive, there's nothing stopping you from experimenting with different distros in Live mode to see which you like best before installing.

 

+1 to Lubuntu for casual users and/or older hardware, my mom didn't have any problems either. If you're more of a tinkerer, try something else though (Arch maybe?).

 

That's pretty lame. If you need to do windows work, they should let you install a VM for it under Linux and not the other way around.

 

So there are still people concerned about Ram usage? Who cares if 2GB out of 16GB are occupied. And if you don't have at least 16GB ram, then maybe stop using a 10 year old pc ...
Whats next? Complaining that HDD's are slow while everyone moved to SSD's ages ago?

I love retro but not when it comes to PC hardware.

 

With current SSD prices...lolwut, that's not even remotely true.

 

I'll look into that. I need to know linux to build my emulation Pi consoles.

 

How I see it: Jiggabytes of cache = good, jiggabytes of memory used by applications = bloat. Of course there are applications where high memory requirements actually make sense, but those aren't part of any sane default desktop OS install.

Yeah... My "Windows work" mostly consists of reading mails in Outlook, the rest is all Linux. The bigger the company, the less common sense you'll find inside. Not much you can do about it, either - Job search is underway, until then I'm getting paid to mostly sit around and wait for Windows to react to input (I often have to wait >4 seconds for a context menu to pop up (loading icons, maybe?), WTF Microsoft?).

 

So it turns out...it was windows update all along. So what I'm going to do after I update windows as far as it'll go is turn updates off and only do them when I feel the need to. That should make things run more efficiently. Then I can get back to editing and when I get my new stick MAMEing.

 

This is also an excellent point. Not a lot of people seem to understand the different between used, inactive and reserved RAM. The general consensus these days is that if you're not running into swap you're all good.

Memory compression is perhaps the best thing about OS X Mavericks, it's useable even on 2GB of Ram, I was going to take my machine to 8GB just because I could but could only afford 6GB at the time and I never ever fill it (well ironically apart from when I'm using wine) and to be fair I'm pretty happy with the way it is.

If I ever have to use a windows system I always just max the fuck out of it, can't say I've ever taken the time to check how much it's using.

 

So far so good on this clean install process. I'm installing language packs now. then I'm shutting down and getting back to it when I'm not having a bad week.

Right now I'm more concerned with getting a better arcade stick than I am with getting my laptop up and running.

 

Unused ram is wasted ram. Its only an issue if you are actually trying to use it and dont have enough.

People obsessed with having lots of free ram are clueless, simple as that.

Windows prefetch and such are good things. They can instantly be dropped if required but are already there if you need them.

 

I don't know if it's bloatware, unintentially OR intentional malware or just windows update being a pain int he ass. That's why I did my own clean install I just had enough of not knowing.

 

no hate, but right now the program i use to monitor my temps etc says im using 32% of my RAM and 29% of my swap.

 

Do you know what it takes for OS X to compress the memory? I've looked at it, and it never seems to be compressed.

 

Is it normal to allow Windows Update to download and install every single update they release?

Maybe I'm crazy, but I select manual download and when it advices new updates available I read all of them and choose the ones I want...

Also, if you launch something heavy, like a game, the Windows processes will all shrink memory usage. Don't need to bother about idle condition at all.

 

I've no idea to be honest. I mean it has to be Mavericks you're running if you're not already as it's a new feature but I don't specifically know what triggers it. I just dipped into activity monitor and my machine is currently compressing 128mb of my ram out of 6GB total and Safari is the only open app with no tabs.

It could just be all marketing nonsense but I do believe to some extent it works only on the count that only 2GB of Ram in ML is noticeably less responsive and almost unusable compared to 2GB in Mavericks.

 

Maybe it only compress if memory goes scarce? Surely compressing takes cpu power and dealys; so I guess it'd prefer compressing over swapping if memory's low, but won't bother if you have enough of it?

 

Hello everyone. I just built myself a new PC and installed a fresh windows 7 64bit yesterday.
At this point I pretty much installed all the drivers I will use and most craps I will run on startup are also installed, like antivirus and Asus Gpu tweak.
Here is what my Ram usage looks like after a reboot.

 

That looks standard to me.