What to do with extra RAM? [Solved]

irenicus09 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jun 2013 Posts: 118

So as you can see from the topic of the thread I'm wondering what you guys do with extra RAM.

I run a minimal window manager (i3) and on most cases unless I'm running a browser with many tabs open, it barely goes above 1~1.5GB. My old laptop has 8 GB and most of the new laptops these days have like 16GB or more.

I understand that the extra RAM is put to use specifically when compiling large packages like Chromium, etc. but not every day do you need to compile a large application like a browser.

So what I want to know is what or how do you guys put this extra ram to use? Unless of course you are gaming on Linux or running multiple VM's it makes sense to have a lot of RAM.

I've also heard of a technique (not sure what its called) to load all your applications in memory (like browser, etc.) so that they can be accessed immediately but I haven't tried it personally. I would like to know how complicated would it be to have a setup like that and whether you would recommend it.

Thanks.

Perfect Gentleman · Veteran Joined: 18 May 2014 Posts: 1252

you can mount directories for temporary files and cache in tmpfs

NeddySeagoon · Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 4:38 pm Post subject:

irenicus09,

The kernel will use it a cache and buffers. You don't need to do anything.
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NeddySeagoon

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frostschutz · Advocate Joined: 22 Feb 2005 Posts: 2977 Location: Germany

I have around 1-2G in tmpfs for a random selection of music to play for the day so the HDD can go into standby. My SSD is too small for my music collection. :lol:

(Actually that's not true anymore since I moved from 64G to 275G recently but I'm too lazy to change my setup).

irenicus09 · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 07 Jun 2013 Posts: 118

Thanks for the feedback guys, I appreciate it.