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Hey if chromium is pulling those types of low numbers then there is no
question.... any ram saved on an old pute is a life line.


> Hi, all.
>
> I've resurrected an ancient PC to try Lubuntu. Celeron 400 MHz, 256 Mb
> RAM and a 20 Gb PATA HDD. Here's my impression of running different
> browsers on the specified hardware.
>
> Testing method:
> 1. Install Lubuntu from Lucid alpha2 preview2 iso.
> 2. Install additional browsers (Chromium, Midori, Arora) from default
> Lucid repos.
> 3. For each of the four available browsers, measure startup time and
> memory usage on a freshly-booted machine (no executables cached), with
> homepage set to about:blank (no downloading/rendering on startup).
> 4. For each of the four available browsers, try to load three tabs:
> - open google.com, search for "Lubuntu";
> - open my gmail account, navigate to a 47-letters thread in
> lubuntu-desktop list ("default browser" discussion), hit "expand all"
> and wait for all to expand;
> - open http://www.rbc.ru, a news site in Russian with several Flash
> banners on the start page.
> 5. Examine memory usage afterwards.
>
> All memory usage numbers are listed as reported by Xfce4 Taskmanager
> with default settings (ie, with "Show memory used by cache as free"
> option active). These values are total numbers, including any memory
> used by system. A freshly-booted system with just taskmanager running
> reports 50..58 Mb RAM used.
>
> Startup times and memory usage after loading (homepage is about:blank,
> if applicable):
> Firefox: 13 seconds, 85 Mb.
> Chromium: 8..10 s, 81 Mb.
> Arora: 12 s, 78 Mb.
> Midori: 17 s, 108 Mb.
>
> Common problems noticed:
> 1. Standard Gmail interface is slow. After initializing, it occupies
> about half CPU capacity constantly. Occasionally, several  seconds'
> delays happen just as I type this text.
> 2. Flash literally kills everything.  Several gtk-gnash processes take
> up all CPU power the machine has. Several times, I had to wait for
> more than 10 minutes (!) until taskmanager window gets redrawn and I'm
> able to see memory usage.
>
> Arora problem: never finished expanding the 47 messages thread. "Still
> Working" message remains shown for more than 10 minutes, and there are
> about 15 messages not expanded.
>
> Firefox problem: while expanding 47 messages, gmail shows
> "unresponsive script" warning at least once. Apparently, the script is
> suspended until the user makes a choice, so the loading process needs
> close user attention.
>
> Midori: initially, gmail did not identify it as a fully compatible
> browser and loaded a reduced "compatible" interface. However, after
> changing the reported browser type to Firefox in preferences, no
> problems encountered with the full version of gmail interface.
>
> Memory usage with three tabs loaded:
> Firefox: 150..160 Mb.
> Arora: 175..185 Mb.
> Midori: 175..185 Mb.
> Chromium: 135..145 Mb.
>
> Conclusion: on low-grade hardware, flash and script-rich pages are
> painfully slow regardless of the browser. On less than 192 Mb RAM, you
> are likely to experience swapping with several pages opened in any
> browser.
>
> Given the available options, my vote is for Chromium *and* disabling
> flash by default. Best is to start playing flash only after the user
> clicks on it, however I'm not sure if it's possible without hacking
> the browser code.
>
> Regards,
> Mikhail
>
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