Various, paranoid, openbox-related affairs.

[perseguidor]

Hello all; I'm not trying to start yet another Fluxbox vs Openbox variant thread. I made the 'switch' from the former to the latter a couple days ago, and I couldn't help noticing the following (I don't put it as <code> so I can use bold):

perseguidor@nox ~ $ ls -l /usr/bin/*box
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1199480 Feb 17 21:08 /usr/bin/fluxbox
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 190980 Feb 17 21:28 /usr/bin/openbox

perseguidor@nox ~ $ ls -l /usr/bin/fbpanel
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 59084 Feb 22 17:22 /usr/bin/fbpanel

perseguidor@nox ~ $ ps aux | grep openbox | grep -v grep
1000 830 0.0 1.1 8384 5772 tty1 S Feb23 0:07 openbox

perseguidor@nox ~ $ ps aux | grep fbpanel | grep -v grep
1000 833 0.0 1.2 11300 6696 tty1 S Feb23 0:11 fbpanel

---- And then... ----

perseguidor@nox ~ $ killall openbox; killall fbpanel; nohup fluxbox &
[1] 22886

perseguidor@nox ~ $ ps aux | grep fluxbox | grep -v grep
1000 22886 0.3 0.6 8236 3464 pts/5 S 09:55 0:00 fluxbox

What gives? How can be fluxbox's executable nine times as large as openbox's and still have almost half the memory footprint of the latter? I know top & ps aux are kinda evil for memory readings, but they can't be that off...

Also, how does a 50k executable (fbpanel) manage to eat another percent of my memory? I like openbox very much, I have already migrated my keybindings and such to xml, and it *does* seem less glitchy when redrawing the screen and all, but how can this be the lighter of boxes?

Could it be because of the native xft support?

Please do correct me if I am wrong about the preceding!
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[frenkel]

This memory doesn't need to be used all, it can also be preserved memory or some opened buffers. There are a lot of buffers and other things in the memory, so this gives a rather unclear view.
It might also have something to do with loaded themes/pixmaps, as those aren't in the executable. And really, executable size isn't always the same as allocated space, I can write a < 1 mb program which allocates > 512 mb.

Hope you understand now,
Frank
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[perseguidor]

Thanks for your answer, Frenkel; I am aware of the basics of memory allocation and such, I think, but your post was enlightening still.

I was just wondering about the true nature of Openbox, as, even being light, it would seem it's not as light as Fluxbox, be it because of excessive memory allocation or fancy default themes.

Also, I realize fbpanel is another subject altogether, but why does a tiny panel allocate almost double the memory of a full fledged window manager, that incidentally also includes a panel?

I'm not just "bitching" about this; I like Openbox, and I also like fbpanel. I'm just curious as to what makes them allocate "so much" memory.
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[allucid]

This is a bit silly here we are counting MBs of memory usage and you probably have at least 256MB of system memory...if you have only 32MB of memory then I might worry about it. Why don't we count cpu cycles, too!

Anyways, keep in mind that there's a tradeoff here. When used correctly, more memory utilization can make your program run faster than if it were using the bare minimum. I am not saying this is the case but high memory usage is not always a bad thing.

Also, when you run fluxbox, start going through the menu and open and close a few windows before you check the memory usage to see if it goes up.

[perseguidor]

[perseguidor]

I'm using this old thread of mine so I don't spam the forums with my petty queries:

Is anyone aware of a way to compile openbox without XFT?

I tried using cvs only to find out ./configure lacks that option. Editing the Makefile... well, I tried that, but I'm not good at it.

Is this possible?
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[frenkel]

[allucid]

afaik it's not optional...otherwise wouldn't it utilize the truetype useflag?