Graphical memory usage map using gmemusage

I am a heavy multitasker. I run a lots of apps at once.. sometimes to the point where this dual screen 22" + 14" setup still feels like I need more screen. However, screen space is not the primary problem, but RAM/Swap utilization instead. Its not unusual for me to have 95%+ RAM 90%+ swap (on a 1.2GB RAM with 1.2GB swap machine) utilization with all the apps I ran and freeing the RAM is kindof a tricky task.

I usually use ps and top to detect apps that consume a lot of RAM and stop them. However, the values shown on the commands are hard to be quickly identified due to the scheme of Virtual, Shared, Resident, Swap does not show the values on how I would expect it to be.

So I went googling and I found out about a very ancient tool ported from SGI IRIX called gmemusage. It shows a graphical representation of the memory consumption by apps running on the system in a quite useful display.



Now I can efficiently find apps that uses lots of memory and free up my RAM without resorting to a reboot.

Yum search gmemusage yielded no result. So, a new package review sent #447080

Getting Shrinkable Tabs with Epiphany

One of my grudge against Epiphany is that its tabs goes off-screen when I open lots of tabs and I need to scroll through the tabs to find the tab I wish to switch to. This gets really annoying when I have like a dozen or more of opened tabs.



Googling around, and I was pointed to this epiphany extension from Epiphany 3rd Party Extensions page : Only One Close Button.

From the description:

Only One Close Button

Author: Stefan Stuhr

This extension has several purposes. The first is to get rid of the close buttons on all tabs. The second is to make the tab width more flexible; instead of a fixed width they will scale, so that there will first be overflow with many tabs open. The third is to make a close button available as a toolbar button.

The name might not tell me that is what I want, but the description do. So, I grabbed it, and here goes:



The close button had to be added manually using "Customize Toolbar", and because the Extension purpose is to make theres Only One Close Button, I couldn't get the close button to appear on each tabs like how Firefox handle it. Anyway, having all tabs appear on the same page have much more value than the close button.

Some side stuff,

I have been using Firefox3 for quite a while now. It is promised that FF3 will have better memory management. During the alpha, memory consumption does looks reduced, but lately, it got back like how it was during FF2. With constant 200-300MB of consumed swap and physical RAM maxed out, it gets annoying sometimes (I keep monitoring the RAM/Swap utilization using the gnome-system-monitor panel applet). Closing firefox frees my RAM from 150% to 80% utilization. So, I'm back to my old habit of cycling between epiphany and ff depending on my needs. But firefox still maintain as my primary browser because of the flexibility of the tabs. Now that Epiphany tabs are "better", I guess I can switch Epiphany as my primary browser, and FF and secondary. Midori browser is good too as another backup browser, but lately its been crashing when I start it (and the tabs follow the default Epiphany tabs).

Keep Fedora "less-moving" using yum-security plugin

Fedora updates repository moves very fast. A few months after the release of F8, hundreds of MBs of packages have been updated. Some people, especially those who came from the less-moving world of Debian and Ubuntu, might found this ridiculous. They are used to receiving only important updates during the stable lifecycle of a release and are not used to Fedora ways of going-forward and adding new enhancement and features to the stable release.

Sometimes, from that many updates, regression problem happened, which is fun to some, but annoying to the others. (I know someone who kept complaining about that - /me glares at a certain person @ #myoss )

I personally does not keep my stable Fedora installations up-to-date to the latest updates, and I hand-pick those packages which I think might have fixed some bugs which I'm encountering. Yes, some people find that tedious :).

For those weak-hearted who are not used to Fedora update release speed, you can opt to only update for security fixes using the yum-security plugin. For the other packages, "If its not broken, why update?". I have known this plugin exist since F7, but didn't really bother to try it, but yesterday I tried it and its awesome!. Yum-security plugin will automatically filter the updates to only security related updates for you.

Using it to update your system is easy, just 'yum install yum-security' and update using 'yum --security update'. More tricks in this Red Hat Magazine post.

This way, you can keep your Fedora installation with less moving parts for your production desktop/server use while keeping it secure.

Btw, looking @ yum-security code, and the updateinfo.xml.gz, it looks to me like its possible to also create a yum plugin to only pull packages which are bugfixes for reported bugs. Is such plugin already exist? I'm planning to look into the possibility, but I don't want to do a duplicate effort - furthermore, I am still not that confident with my ability to work with existing codes. IMO, this can be a good approach or airbag for users who are having trouble of too many updates from Fedora which randomly breaks their system. Users who only want bugfixes and security updates can reduce their updates through this type of filter, and (hopefully) reduce their risk of facing regression of enhancement updates. On the same time, new enhancements can still be continually added into the stable Fedora updates.

edit: fixed RH Mag link