I was a bit surprised to see that the system is using 1.1 GB of RAM after I just booted the system. Previously, it was always 680MB.
The screenshot shows my RAM usage after I just booted up. Now I am by no means short on RAM (I have 32 GB), but I’d like to know what’s taking up the extra RAM. 680MB to 1.1GB is quite a big difference.
Hi @isaiah18376,
While I don’t use Xfce, so would know for sure, if you take into consideration that there was quite a big update for Xfce not long ago, it does make sense.
and using more ram makes linux faster : https://www.linuxatemyram.com/
Hi, @Hanzel
Thanks for your reply. So is disk caching a fairly recent thing? Like it’s been implemented via the recent update? I mean it doesn’t make sense if it’s been around for a long time? Coz my ram usage was 680mb not too long ago.
It is not a recent thing, my guess is that there is a reason for the behavior you see, but since you have enough I would not worry about it.
Searching the forum/wiki for swap / swapiness / swap pressure will give some insight in what others use and do.
Start reframing how you think about RAM usage.
“I’ve got 32GB of RAM, and barely any of it is being used? I’m being ripped off!” 
Like @Hanzel said, the more RAM that can be used, the better for system performance. Especially for re-launching applications and caching data.
To put it into perspective, observe the difference in performance with a SMB share between,
The first option will yield noticeable delays and slowdowns when frequently accessing files or reading large compressed archives. The second option will yield performance akin to accessing a locally attached drive, simply because its holding the data in cache (RAM) and doesn’t require constantly pulling data from the source.
Hello. I’m a beginner, so please bear with me.
First of all, I suppose I should rephrase my question? When I say “ram usage” I was referring to the number I read from htop. Typically when I ran htop right after I boot, the “Mem” meter showed 680MB/31.2G
It was only fairly recently that the 680MB became 1.1 GB, and I was just wondering about the change.
I wasn’t being technical when I implore people to mentally “reframe” the question / concern in their minds.
Old paradigms don’t always fit well into modern times. In the past it was all about squeezing down every last bit of RAM “usage” due to the smaller breathing room our systems had; lower hardware resources and capacities.
Now it’s different. As the performance-to-price ratio continues to rise, it’s a matter of using your hardware, RAM included.
“More sophisticated applications? More complex themes? Greater modularity? Caching data for near-instant access? Lessening the burden on non-volatile storage? Let’s use everything we’ve got!”
Otherwise, what’s the point in having 32GB of RAM on your personal computer, if it’s not even being used?
What’s the point of using a top-tier CPU with the highest benchmarks, if all you do is browse the web and check email, and constantly monitor your CPU temps to keep it as low as possible?
Look at games, web browsers, operating systems, and software in general. They require more disk space since they are larger in size than their predecessors. Hence, more to load up into RAM.
just boot and reports
inxi -Fzawhat is your video card ?
You’re sure this trend doesn’t have more to do with cheap/lazy development (not that I’m calling the XFCE devs lazy, but more big tech and the games industry) because there is an expectation for a fast SSD, fast and lots of empty RAM and a new generation fast CPU and to use those resources frivolously?
It’s all well and good if you have a new computer but my 8GB 1333Mhz DDR2 RAM is really starting to be come nowhere near suitable for running exactly the same stuff it ran 7 years ago.
If I play Dota 2 and open Firefox or Signal (or any other electron app) my system has to aggressively swap from ram and if I’m not careful my whole system can become quickly unusable.
You can download an older image of Manjaro Xfce and compare ram usage of different processes.
I think a lot of the comments so far have no real evidence to support some of the speculations
RAM usage on htop is shown in binary units Gibibytes and Mebibytes instead of decimal units Gigabytes and Megabytes
My system has a few modifications from stock Manjaro and has been rolling for over 5 years
$ free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.7Gi 538Mi 6.7Gi 4.0Mi 505Mi 7.0Gi
Swap: 3.9Gi 0B 3.9Gi
My partner’s Xfce has not been modified much from standard Manjaro install and has only been rolling for 18 months
$ free -h
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.8Gi 493Mi 6.7Gi 57Mi 578Mi 7.0Gi
Swap: 3.9Gi 0B 3.9Gi
Both systems have 8GB (7.45 GiB) RAM installed
So these systems are using approximately 6% of available RAM when booted
But your system is only using about 3.5% of available RAM
I do not think that having a bit more RAM used when OS is first booted will impair performance of Xfce when in use
Hello, no it’s not just you, thanks for posting I was wondering where to post then found this thread. I have been religiously running HTOP after every reboot for about a year now then keeping it open to monitor, my ram usage jumped exactly after the last stable update. No other changes. Previously it would always start fresh around 600MB (or I now gather it’s actually MiB,
it now starts at 1000+. This is my long-running messed with home XFCE system, I have a barely touched backup/road XFCE system that went from 500+ to 700+, again right after the last stable update.
I too am a beginner and will be studying this thread, from reading I understand that this may not be a ‘problem’ (I have 32MB of ram as well, 8MB on my backup) but just wanted to post because it definitely presented itself right after the last stable update (2021-09-24)
output from my barely tweaked XFCE road machine, I will add my long time home XFCE later after I reboot, thanks
[tgz@roadm6500 ~]$ inxi -Fza
System:
Kernel: 5.10.68-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64
root=UUID=376164d0-ad70-4b70-b0c4-3aacf4cb1aba rw quiet apparmor=1
security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.16.1
vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Portable System: Dell product: Precision M6300 v: N/A
serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 8 serial: <filter>
Mobo: Dell model: 0JM680 serial: <filter> BIOS: Dell v: A15
date: 06/05/2013
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 48.1 Wh (100.0%) condition: 48.1/79.9 Wh (60.2%)
volts: 12.2 min: 11.1 model: Sanyo DELL C54478 type: Li-ion
serial: <filter> status: Full
CPU:
Info: Dual Core model: Intel Core2 Duo T9300 bits: 64 type: MCP
arch: Penryn family: 6 model-id: 17 (23) stepping: 6 microcode: 60F cache:
L2: 6 MiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 ssse3 bogomips: 9977
Speed: 798 MHz min/max: 800/2501 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz):
1: 798 2: 798
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX unsupported
Type: l1tf mitigation: PTE Inversion
Type: mds
status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode; SMT disabled
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass status: Vulnerable
Type: spectre_v1
mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2
mitigation: Full generic retpoline, STIBP: disabled, RSB filling
Type: srbds status: Not affected
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD RV515/M54 [Mobility Radeon X1400] vendor: Dell
driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:7145 class-ID: 0300
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.16.1 driver:
loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x318mm (20.0x12.5")
s-diag: 599mm (23.6")
Monitor-1: LVDS res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 133 size: 367x230mm (14.4x9.1")
diag: 433mm (17.1")
Monitor-2: DVI-0 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94
size: 519x324mm (20.4x12.8") diag: 612mm (24.1")
OpenGL: renderer: ATI RV515 v: 2.1 Mesa 21.2.2 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 82801H HD Audio vendor: Dell driver: snd_hda_intel
v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:284b class-ID: 0403
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.68-1-MANJARO running: yes
Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.37 running: no
Network:
Device-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5756ME Gigabit Ethernet PCI Express
vendor: Dell driver: tg3 v: kernel port: ee00 bus-ID: 09:00.0
chip-ID: 14e4:1674 class-ID: 0200
IF: enp9s0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 149.05 GiB used: 13.2 GiB (8.9%)
SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Intel model: SSDSA2M160G2GN
size: 149.05 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B
speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 02M3 scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / raw-size: 149.05 GiB size: 145.71 GiB (97.76%)
used: 13.2 GiB (9.1%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 52.0 C mobo: N/A sodimm: SODIMM C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 0
Info:
Processes: 158 Uptime: 27m wakeups: 2 Memory: 7.77 GiB
used: 807.6 MiB (10.2%) Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers:
gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1207 lib: 393 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash
v: 5.1.8 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.06
output from immediately after booting my long time home XFCE system, went from 600 to 1000+ MiB after update
[tgz@xfce-1 ~]$ inxi -Fza
System:
Kernel: 5.10.68-1-MANJARO x86_64 bits: 64 compiler: gcc v: 11.1.0
parameters: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/vmlinuz-5.10-x86_64
root=UUID=cf9d3d26-6bb5-40df-bf67-b4729a325742 rw quiet apparmor=1
security=apparmor udev.log_priority=3
Desktop: Xfce 4.16.0 tk: Gtk 3.24.29 info: xfce4-panel wm: xfwm 4.16.1
vt: 7 dm: LightDM 1.30.0 Distro: Manjaro Linux base: Arch Linux
Machine:
Type: Portable System: Dell product: Precision M6500 v: N/A
serial: <filter> Chassis: type: 8 serial: <filter>
Mobo: Dell model: 0R1203 serial: <filter> BIOS: Dell v: A10
date: 06/04/2013
Battery:
ID-1: BAT0 charge: 88.0 Wh (100.0%) condition: 88.0/93.2 Wh (94.4%)
volts: 12.3 min: 11.1 model: Samsung SDI DELL 3M19008 type: Li-ion
serial: <filter> status: Full
CPU:
Info: Quad Core model: Intel Core i7 Q 740 bits: 64 type: MT MCP
arch: Nehalem family: 6 model-id: 1E (30) stepping: 5 microcode: A cache:
L2: 6 MiB
flags: lm nx pae sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx bogomips: 27672
Speed: 931 MHz min/max: 933/1734 MHz boost: enabled Core speeds (MHz):
1: 931 2: 930 3: 931 4: 931 5: 931 6: 931 7: 931 8: 931
Vulnerabilities: Type: itlb_multihit status: KVM: VMX disabled
Type: l1tf
mitigation: PTE Inversion; VMX: conditional cache flushes, SMT vulnerable
Type: mds status: Vulnerable: Clear CPU buffers attempted, no microcode;
SMT vulnerable
Type: meltdown mitigation: PTI
Type: spec_store_bypass
mitigation: Speculative Store Bypass disabled via prctl and seccomp
Type: spectre_v1
mitigation: usercopy/swapgs barriers and __user pointer sanitization
Type: spectre_v2 mitigation: Full generic retpoline, IBPB: conditional,
IBRS_FW, STIBP: conditional, RSB filling
Type: srbds status: Not affected
Type: tsx_async_abort status: Not affected
Graphics:
Device-1: AMD Broadway XT [Mobility Radeon HD 5870]
vendor: Dell FirePro M7820 driver: radeon v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.0
chip-ID: 1002:68a0 class-ID: 0300
Device-2: Logic3 / SpectraVideo plc G-720 Keyboard type: USB
driver: hid-generic,usbhid bus-ID: 2-1.4.1.1.4.4:24 chip-ID: 1267:0103
class-ID: 0300
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.13 compositor: xfwm4 v: 4.16.1 driver:
loaded: ati,radeon unloaded: modesetting alternate: fbdev,vesa
display-ID: :0.0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 1920x1200 s-dpi: 96 s-size: 508x317mm (20.0x12.5")
s-diag: 599mm (23.6")
Monitor-1: LVDS res: 1920x1200 hz: 60
Monitor-2: DisplayPort-0 res: 1920x1200 hz: 60 dpi: 94
size: 519x324mm (20.4x12.8") diag: 612mm (24.1")
OpenGL: renderer: AMD JUNIPER (DRM 2.50.0 / 5.10.68-1-MANJARO LLVM 12.0.1)
v: 3.3 Mesa 21.2.2 compat-v: 3.1 direct render: Yes
Audio:
Device-1: Intel 5 Series/3400 Series High Definition Audio vendor: Dell
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 00:1b.0 chip-ID: 8086:3b56
class-ID: 0403
Device-2: AMD Juniper HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 5700 Series] vendor: Dell
driver: snd_hda_intel v: kernel bus-ID: 01:00.1 chip-ID: 1002:aa58
class-ID: 0403
Sound Server-1: ALSA v: k5.10.68-1-MANJARO running: yes
Sound Server-2: JACK v: 1.9.19 running: no
Sound Server-3: PulseAudio v: 15.0 running: yes
Sound Server-4: PipeWire v: 0.3.37 running: no
Network:
Device-1: Broadcom NetXtreme BCM5761e Gigabit Ethernet PCIe vendor: Dell
driver: tg3 v: kernel port: de00 bus-ID: 09:00.0 chip-ID: 14e4:1680
class-ID: 0200
IF: eno1 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: <filter>
RAID:
Hardware-1: Intel 82801 Mobile SATA Controller [RAID mode] driver: ahci
v: 3.0 port: 6ea0 bus-ID: 00:1f.2 chip-ID: 8086.282a rev: 05
class-ID: 0104
Drives:
Local Storage: total: 447.14 GiB used: 32.91 GiB (7.4%)
SMART Message: Required tool smartctl not installed. Check --recommends
ID-1: /dev/sda maj-min: 8:0 vendor: Intel model: SSDSA2CW160G3
size: 149.05 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B
speed: 3.0 Gb/s type: SSD serial: <filter> rev: 0362 scheme: MBR
ID-2: /dev/sdb maj-min: 8:16 type: USB model: Mass Storage Device
size: 298.09 GiB block-size: physical: 512 B logical: 512 B type: N/A
serial: <filter> scheme: MBR
Partition:
ID-1: / raw-size: 149.05 GiB size: 145.71 GiB (97.76%)
used: 32.91 GiB (22.6%) fs: ext4 dev: /dev/sda1 maj-min: 8:1
Swap:
Alert: No swap data was found.
Sensors:
System Temperatures: cpu: 51.0 C mobo: N/A sodimm: SODIMM C gpu: radeon
temp: 51.0 C
Fan Speeds (RPM): cpu: 2635
Info:
Processes: 253 Uptime: 1m wakeups: 2 Memory: 31.28 GiB
used: 1.01 GiB (3.2%) Init: systemd v: 249 tool: systemctl Compilers:
gcc: 11.1.0 Packages: pacman: 1302 lib: 398 flatpak: 0 Shell: Bash
v: 5.1.8 running-in: xfce4-terminal inxi: 3.3.06
thanks
After I read your post, I’ve checked what is going on my rig and looks like RAM usage is higher than it should be. I’ve switched kernels and on 5.14 the result is something around 632 and on 5.10 is 596 (I’ve trimmed my setup to something around 300-320 MiB).
Never paid attention to this, but for example, xfce4-power-manager have 3 outputs on 5.14 and 2 on 5.10 kernel in htop.
gnome-keyring-deamon have 4, xfce4-session have 3 and so on.
Thanks I’ll give 5.14 a shot later just to see what happens, as others mentioned the RAM usage itself might not be an issue in itself overall. I’ve stuck with LTS kernels only for some time now after some troubles I had way back. Can’t remember what, but I’m running 10-14 year old laptops… once the top models in their class, but now long in the tooth and bought cheap 
I don’t have the knowledge to understand the repercussions of this off the top of my head, but thanks for the tip!
I’ve checked this on Xfce installed on VM, and it looks the same, those are sub-processes (I’m just stupid). However, RAM usage is normal, around 600 MiB (didn’t update VM yet).
I’ve checked 5.4 and 4.19 kernels, and they also have different RAM usage. Lowest is 5.10, at least on my potato.
heh, I misread this and your earlier post, I thought 5.14 was lowest. As I have plenty of RAM and saw a few glitches with 5.14 mentioned in the stable update thread I think I’ll just leave everything as is for now. 5.10 LTS. thanks again!
Data posted for the ‘road machine’ shows an uptime of 27m and may not be relevant to RAM use when first booted. But this data also shows only 158 active processes
Data for the ‘long time’ system is showing an uptime of 1m, but is also showing 2 wakeups
and 253 active processes
I rebooted my main system to get more data from free and inxi
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 7.7Gi 536Mi 6.7Gi 4.0Mi 510Mi 7.0Gi
Swap: 3.9Gi 0B 3.9Gi
No packages were updated or changed since previous boot but system reports 2 MiB less than before
Processes: 222 Uptime: 1m wakeups: 0 Memory: 7.75 GiB used: 853 MiB (10.7%)
Based on the comments here and my own experimentation, it is clear that tools like htop/task manager understand “ram usage” differently compared to free
After making this post, I downloaded the ISO and did a clean reinstall so that I can compare the differences before and after the latest update. Here is a summary of what I discovered:
free command were consistent both before and after the system update. free -h reported around 590MiB RAM usage for both cases.I think the best way to resolve this is to find out what htop considers as “ram usage.” Since free returned the same result before and after the latest stable update, it’s likely that the new update doesn’t use more RAM, just that somehow htop is reporting that it is using more.
I think this is the best possible answer based on limited data available
To get a more specific answer would require a lot of testing
User would have to start with an old ISO running v5.10 kernel, as already suggested
system would have to be cold-booted about 10 times to get an average of values from inxi and free
(values for RAM used can vary even when no changes are made to system)
Then system can be updated and repeat tests to get new data values
And for a thorough job the kernel should be updated to v5.14 and repeat tests for the later kernel
But considering that none of the comments here mention the usual consequences of having additional processes loaded and more RAM used (increase in time taken to boot or less responsive desktop) this seems like a lot of effort for not much gain