Other Window Manager Resident RAM usage

S

sidetone

This is for the RES (resident memory) RAM usage of window managers (from my computer in August 2021). The top command was used to get these numbers.

Window ManagerResidential Memory in MB
MCWM (+xterm)2.6 (+14)
BSPWM (+sxhkd)3.4 (+2.9)
TinyWM3.7
EvilWM4.1
JWM (no dependency options)5
TWM6
CTWM7.3
SpectrWM8.2 - 9.8
VTWM10
JWM (when compiled with basic options)10
JWM (with background image used)10 (temporarily up to 300, after it starts)



The above ones are listed, because they're the window managers that I'm familiar with using or was curious about, and because they're BSD style.

Before reinstalling JWM a few days ago, this window manager used 4 to 6MB of residential memory with optional dependencies on, and with a background image set. Update: After re-compiling later on, JWM appeared to temporarily use 15 to 300MB of RES when a background image was set. It seemed that, after a while, the RES memory for JWM dropped back to around 10MB. Using an external program like bgs for setting the background doesn't cause a temporary increase in RES, but it doesn't allow transparency with windows that use it.



https://l3net.wordpress.com/2013/03/17/a-memory-comparison-of-light-linux-desktops/comment-page-1/ shows memory usage in MB from 2013, it's not indicated what measurement of RAM is used (whether it's residential memory):
screen-png.11112

A few from this chart that are BSD-like, for comparison:
  • DWM - 1
  • TWM - 1.2
  • Xmonad - 2
  • JWM - 3
  • i3 - 3
  • Blackbox - 3
  • IceWM - 4.5
  • FVWM - 13

Feel free to post any type of RAM statistic on any Window Manager or Desktop Environment. When posting about Desktop Environments, include metrics for the WM used with it. When a window manager is compiled with different options (one being the bare minimum), it can give varying RAM statistics.

A previous discussion with the narrower topic of TinyWM is at Thread tinywm-the-lightest-of-all-window-managers-and-desktop-environments.81880.
 
Last edited:
KWin

grahamperrin said:
With base memory halved to 1,024 MB, swap enabled and video memory increased to 48 MB:
  • less than 100 M memory (RES) …
Click to expand...

In a far less constrained environment, 370 M:

1630552090858.png

Code: 
% uname -iKrsU
FreeBSD 14.0-CURRENT GENERIC-NODEBUG 1400030 1400032
% pkg info -x plasma5-kwin
plasma5-kwin-5.22.4
% pkg -vv | grep url | grep -v pkgbase
    url             : "pkg+http://pkg.FreeBSD.org/FreeBSD:14:amd64/latest",
    url             : "file:///usr/local/poudriere/data/packages/main-default",
%

Postscript

From the manual page for htop(1):

Code: 
       Memory sizes in htop are displayed in a human-readable form.  Sizes are
       printed in powers of 1024. (e.g., 1023M = 1072693248 Bytes)

Where previously I wrote less than 100 MB, that was a transcription error. Should have been less than 100 M; now corrected.

It may be human-readable, but it doesn't help me … powers of 1024, FFS. I have no idea what 370 M is in MB and right now I'm too lazy to use an online converter.
 
Window ManagerRES in MB
AntiWM3.4
MCWM (+jbxvt)2.7 (+2.7)
IttyWM2.4
TinyWM3.4

The terminal emulator was required for MCWM. It was useful for IttyWM and TinyWM, but not required. AntiWM couldn't use a terminal emulator on top. The size of all of these window managers and jbxvt from the top command was about 13M to 14M for each.

x11-wm/ittywm is a fork of x11-wm/tinywm that uses less Resident memory, due to it being in libxcb. x11-wm/mcwm and x11/jbxvt are also low in size, because they use libxcb as well. However, since mcwm requires a terminal emulator, it ends up being higher in size in comparison to these other window managers.

x11-wm/antiwm only allows one graphic or maximized window per screen. Using AntiWM requires hints from /usr/local/share/doc/antiwm/README.
 
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