GNOME desktop is said to be rather greedy of system ressources, so I’d like to know which minimal ressources are required (on a PC) to run a such desktop environment ? Thanks,
Seems like a typical Linux trolling.
How much RAM do you have?
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Only 4GB
Moreover, I’d like reinstall the system with the purpose to encrypt the whole disk ; yet, once the disk is encrypted, encryption key must be available in the RAM as long as the support is used, thus, this process requires also a pretty much more system ressources.
So, is there a cap of CPU power below the encryption is not advised ?
GNOME is a bit heavy on resources. By experience, it needs a minimum of 8GB to work smoothly.
4GB will allow for a few apps running and Veracrypt can work and stay working in a 4GB system. I’ve daily driven once such machine and waiting for a browser to load is a pain (as with any other app). You also cannot run multitab.
Buy, beg, borrow or steal steal RAM if you want to stay on GNOME for a more smoother performance otherwise, consider using a lighter DE like XFCE or LXDE. Do keep in mind that both DE uses X11 for its display server and those are less secure.
KDE has Wayland and uses less RAM initially after finishing boot to desktop, but does does ramp up quickly.
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I also concur. For a pleasant modern DE, I’d get at least 8 GB. Gnome is the most secure with Wayland, if we are coming from a security standpoint.
The difference in resource usage between Gnome and other common desktop environments is +/- few hundred megabytes of RAM in most cases. Not enough to be a significant factor unless you are very resource constrained (e.g. <4GB memory. At the very low end LXQT can make sense).
If you had 8 GB or more RAM, I wouldn’t worry about RAM when choosing a desktop environment. That is more than enough to smoothly run any desktop environment with sufficient room to spare, so other factors should precedence. But at 4 GB, that is the point where I’d start considering something intentionally built for lower spec’d systems (e.g. LXQT).
If at all possible you should add more ram, regardless of what DE you choose. Used memory is quite cheap these days–like really cheap depending on your needs-- so if you can upgrade that’d be my recommendation. You should be able to go expand to 8GB-16GB for $10-20.
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And what about LUKS ? (i.e. it’s LUKS that handles the disk encryption during the Linux distro installation, and then manages the encryption key)
For Xfce DE, the Wayland support is on work…
Meanwhile, could you show some use cases where X11 is less safe than Wayland ? Thanks,
It’s a good article to read, but to summarize:
One application can sniff or inject keystrokes to another one, can take snapshots of the screen occupied by windows belonging to another one, etc.
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I have not tried it because it is a decommissioned work computer and I am afraid that if I did not “share” it, it may go straight to the recycler.
Also I have found a similar decommissioned Dell computer have successfully salvaged the RAM there to increase my work computer to 8GB.
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Tails OS runs Gnome (so, the windows manager is Wayland), and the Tails’ site points that the minimal RAM is 2Gb.
What does it mean ?
XFCE Wayland is out in the experimental phase:
https://xfce.org/about/tour
In a nutshell, does the RAM saturation lead to an excessive battery drain ?
no? trying to search, so what do you mean exactly by RAM Saturation
If the RAM struggles to manage all the taks running in the background, I suppose that has a consequence on the battery life… ?
RAM doesn’t execute tasks, the CPU does.
If you have too little RAM, what ends up happening (if you have swap space, which you should), is that the CPU will start using the hard drive to supplement the RAM. This is very slow in comparison of just using purely RAM. It’s not necessarily drastically more work on the CPU, your computer will just be waiting around longer to get information a lot farther away.
If you go below the minimum amount, you’ll spend a large amount of time in swap space, and your computer will likely feel like slow and shitty. Aka, get more RAM.
Indeed…
I bounce back on a previous post, about Tails. Tails (that runs Gnome = Wayland) recommends at least 2Gb to work properly, so can Tails use the swap memory ?
I would actively avoid it, even if you could set it up. From their site…
On the contrary, Tails never writes anything to the hard disk and only runs from the memory of the computer. The memory is entirely deleted when you shutdown Tails, erasing all possible traces.
If you set up swap and got Tails to use it, you are now defeating one of the purposes of Tails - not writing to disk. Even if you shut your computer off, the data may still reside on the hard drive.
You can use a system without swap, but you’ll likely end up with memory thrashing. For a regular Linux system, use swap as a fail safe. For Tails, ensure you meet the minimum RAM specs.
Are you trying to run tails on a sub-2GB RAM system? Or is this just learning / hypothetical?
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Is it not possible to use zram as a swap device on Tails?
I believe that could work, if setup. Might be good to see if that is the standard setup for Tails.
I’d imagine if one is heavily relying on zram as a swap device for sub-2GB RAM, I imagine there would be some performance impact.
I’ve initially asked how RAM is required for running properly GNOME. (I have 4GB RAM).
I was advised at least 8GB for a smoothly usage.
I’m just surprised that Tails recommends on it’s hand 2BG minimum, since moreover it isn’t set to use the swap memory…
It’s curious.