On Tue, 14 Dec 2010 16:46:08 -0700
Clint Pachl <pachl@ecentryx.com> wrote:

quoted text
> Denise H. G. wrote:
> >>> I've switched to FreeBSD for my desktop with 4G memory...
> >>>        
> >> >
> >> >  Unnecessary fear :
> >> >
> >> >  $ sysctl kern.version
> >> >  kern.version=OpenBSD 4.8-current (GENERIC.MP) #547: Tue Dec  7
> >> > 23:16:34 MST
> >>      
> > 2010
> >    
> >> >       deraadt@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC.MP
> >> >
> >> >  $
> >> >
> >> >  load averages:  0.76,  1.14,  1.06
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >                                    hostname 13:27:52
> >> >  49 processes:  1 running, 45 idle, 1 zombie, 2 on processor
> >> >  CPU0 states:  2.0% user,  0.0% nice,  1.6% system,  0.0%
> >> > interrupt, 96.4%
> >>      
> > idle
> >    
> >> >  CPU1 states:  3.8% user,  0.0% nice,  1.2% system,  0.0%
> >> > interrupt, 95.0%
> >>      
> > idle
> >    
> >> >  Memory: Real: 321M/610M act/tot  Free: 2651M  Swap: 0K/8189M
> >> >  Memory: Real: used/tot
> >> >
> >> >  $ dmesg | grep mem
> >> >  RTC BIOS diagnostic error 11<memory_size>
> >> >  real mem  = 3487125504 (3325MB)
> >> >  avail mem = 3420016640 (3261MB)
> >> >  spdmem0 at iic0 addr 0x50: 2GB DDR3 SDRAM PC3-10600
> >> >  spdmem1 at iic0 addr 0x52: 2GB DDR3 SDRAM PC3-10600
> >> >  kqemu: kqemu version 0x00010300 loaded, max locked mem=1702696kB
> >>      
> 
> I think Bodzar's point here is that you don't need 4GB, especially on
> a desktop.
> 
> Sure, your car can do 230 kph, but how often do you ever get over 150?
> 
> Unless you're running a very busy database server or a crazy web
> server, I don't think you'll ever need much above 2GB.
> 
> I have 2GB in most of my i386 and amd64 laptops and servers. None of
> my machines ever touch the swap. In fact, most of the time I have 50%
> FREE RAM. On my development laptop I typically run a Seamonkey
> Browser with 50 tabs and Mail (400MB), about 20 terminals (half of
> which are SSHed to remote machines), Inkscape, Gimp, Postgresql
> locally for dev, ruby-sinatra, etc. and I've never been over 1.2GB. I
> do run cwm as my window manager. So lets say for shits and giggles
> that you're running KDE or something bloated like that, then maybe
> you'll use another gig. So what, you're still under 3GB.
> 
> Save yourself time and headaches and just run OpenBSD stable or 
> snapshots. Compiling kernels is a waste of time when you're doing it
> for performance reasons. I used to do this shit about 8 years ago
> just to eek out a little more performance, so I thought. I was also
> coming from Linux/FreeBSD to OpenBSD at that time. I finally realized
> that my time is better spent doing other things. Now I run OpenBSD
> exclusively on all four of my systems and my life is easy.
> 
> One last thing: when developers say don't do something, they know
> best so listen. Compiling in BIGMEM is bad if they told you no.
> 

omg, i am using 95% of my memory all the time, should i be worried?
maybe kern.bufcachepercent=95 has something to do with it; blame Bob.