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Description
I think the 6 ttys available by default are an exageration for the common user who doesn´t use it, wasting memory resources.
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Veejay wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 15:32
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Wasting what? 10 megs tops? We seriously need to focus on more serious problems, given the state of the average hardware in 2008, with all due respect.
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MighMoS wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:26
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10MB is HUGE for just spawning TTYs. Looking at Gnome-system monitor, each process has 572.0KB of memory, all of it resident, meaning that all in all, about 572.0KB is taken up for running one, or more TTYs.
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johndrinkwater wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:31
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While it’s a very small issue: it can be resolved in minutes, hardly focus stealing from the main release.
Since I have a felt sluggish 256MB machines in Ubuntu, having this decreased *by default* would be a good thing.
+1
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gatsby wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 16:33
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Maybe it´s little memory, but it is still waste memory. I think we should focus on wasting the less resources we can, being 512kb or 10 mb.
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staubi wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 17:11
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If I remember right, ubuntu was originally (also) designed for countries where not everyone has the latest hardware, so even wasting small amount's of memory is unnecessary.
Everyone who needs 6 ttys would be able to reactivate them, but few who don't need them are able to deactivate some.
My suggestion: Leave 2 activated. That'll be enough for all worst cases.
By the way: I'm having a pretty old PC myself and one of the (many) reasons to use free software is, that they even work on older hardware. Also a kind of green IT, since most of the ressources are used in the production of a PC.
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ottk3 wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 18:04
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I think that's the point, everyone who really needs 6 ttys can activate them.
For everyone else it's just a waste of memory...
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arzajac wrote on the 28 Feb 08 at 18:34
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How do you activate more ttys?
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randomnote1 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 00:07
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6 ttys does seem like a lot.
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barlennan wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:42
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People with limited hardware are more likely to be running in console mode, and use multiple ttys. Also, it's tradition for X to be on (Ctrl)-Alt-F7, F8, etc., and I believe some other more obscure things expect to have F2, 3, or 4 available.
I don't have a strong opinion, which is why I'd rather the Ubuntu developers work on other things.
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unit3 wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:49
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This is sort of insane. If you want to focus on memory hogging programs, focus on the ones we'll see the most gains by improving, rather than something that saves 500k.
For instance, replacing metacity with xfwm4 can save 30+ MB and greatly increase the speed of a low end system. If you want to tune anything, tune the default window manager.
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wolfier wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 02:53
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^--- unit3, you're the voice of reason.
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cmr wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 05:19
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i am speechless. this is beyond insane.
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jsnow wrote on the 29 Feb 08 at 06:38
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I think the memory cost may be a bit overstated: looking at /proc/(pid of one of the getty procs on my machine)/maps, I see a bunch of libraries (I suppose these are shared with other processes), and (if I'm reading the numbers right) 4096 bytes of stack, 143,360 bytes of heap, and a few odd memory regions that don't add up to much. However, I do think that reducing memory is very important and every little bit helps. I regularly use ubuntu on a 192 meg thinkpad because it works (barely) for what I want it to do. There are a lot of machines out there with 256 megs of ram, and even one or two megs is a worthwhile improvement if the change is easy.
Adding a low-memory window manager as an option may save more memory, in which case I think we should do that too.
(Perhaps there is a way not to spawn a getty process until someone actually hit [ctr][alt][f1] or whatever.)
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aschuring wrote on the 2 Mar 08 at 13:45
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This is ridiculous. Use top: a single getty uses 516kB of memory, of which 448kB is shared memory. That means having one terminal will cost you 516kB, and every single additional terminal takes only 68kB of your precious memory.
So we're talking about saving 350kB of memory AT MOST. On a 256MB machine (which is small by current standards), that is 0.2%. Even top itself uses three times that amount of memory.
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gatsby wrote on the 3 Mar 08 at 14:54
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I believed that terminals consume more memory, but given the facts, it´s not really important related to memory.
But the main reason of this topic it´s about the innecesarity of this extra virtual consoles. I just don´t see the necessity of having 6 virtual consoles in one machine, plus 4 virtual graphical consoles in X. It´s totally an exageration in my opinion.
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steve196 wrote on the 12 Apr 08 at 10:44
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-1
I am all for taking bloat out, but the ttys just aren't it. Start with drivers for things that aren't there, always running programs, that only a minority uses (evolution) wasteful default settings in various programs...
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Primož Papič wrote on the 15 May 08 at 21:02
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I always asked myself, what useful could I do wit all tty.
Well only thin that comes to my mind is:
-use it to run lynx
-use it as simple, yet effective screen saver / locking screen
So +1 from me.
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MighMoS wrote on the 31 May 08 at 18:50
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This wont really help, because even if you save the memory, its never going to be used if you don't use it. So when you're out of memory, it will get swapped out, and will NEVER get swapped back in, so you wouldn't suffer any performance penalty. Not only that, but because most of it is read only, those parts don't even have to be written out to swap (but can be re-read from the disk if needed).
"Premature optimization is the root of all evil". Work on solutions that have been measured to cause problems, not any and everything.
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robrwo wrote on the 19 Jul 08 at 23:09
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If memory is such a tight issue for you, disable ttys. But then again, maybe run a different distr designed for lower-end machines.
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Eldmannen wrote on the 20 Jul 08 at 04:21
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Yeah, 6 is plenty.
But how much resources do they take?
How much would we benefit to reduce?
Would the benefit be greater than the loss?
+/- 0
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