Just a stupid wondering:
How come that Mate, that is supposedly extremely lightweight (well maybe not by design but by origin) has so many apps that are heavier than other DE:s?
I mean not everything can be revealed by looking at numbers, but for example Mate’s system manager uses, according to plain numbers, three times as much memory as Gnome’s system manager. Mate’s calculator uses three times as much memory as Galculator. And so on.
My only guess is that other DE:s has more services already running, so the actual memory cost of the application is “hidden” by some of what it is needing always is running anyway (a specific example from across the tracks is IE, that on paper was very lightweight but that’s because 80% of it was in fact always running as part of Windows, started or not started).
They say in Linux world: unused memory is wasted memory.
So as you say, simply looking at the numbers doesn’t tell the whole truth as there are so many factors to be considered.
Linux memory management is complicated. Linux buffers and caches memory, and can use those when more memory is needed.
You can look at the memory usage with programs like top or glances.
They give some idea of what is going on.
So, I wouldn’t be too worried about the numbers alone. If the system feels responsive, then probably all is quite good. And if the system is no more that responsive, something should be done.
For example, quit apps using too much memory, or install more RAM to the machine (if possible).
for me how productive a DE can be and how responsive a DE is… if i click something i dont want that some application have to wait. responsiveness is not about bit more or less of ram, like gnome it runs fluenter but stil feel a performance gab…
i personal also think if you run kde or gnome then mate you feel the performance gab.
This is one of the reasons I love Xfce; running Xfce after running plasma is just… It feels so much faster. Things react so much quicker. And that’s with things like using Nemo instead of Thunar, for example.
