[K12OSN] Client RAM question

[Julius Szelagiewicz]

On Sat, 27 Mar 2004, Les Mikesell wrote:

> On Sat, 2004-03-27 at 08:03, Rita Gibson wrote:
>
> > I am very interested in this discussion as I am trying to figure out how
> > to get a little better performance in our lab. I have been trying to
> > decide whether to try to migrate all the boxes I have that would hand
> > 128MB into the lab -- performance is always an issue when you have a lab
> > full of excited students trying to get their work done. If the client
> > has more memory, then does the server do less swapping for that client
> > (thus less processor time and bandwidth?).
>
> I think the only thing X can do with extra memory is use it
> for 'backing store' so the obscured parts of overlapping
> or covered windows (which can be a lot) are stored locally
> instead of being redrawn as they are uncovered. If you only
> work on one thing at once, this would not make much difference.
>
Les,
	from my (rather cursory) reading i see theat you are absolutely
right: X server seems to try to cache the data as you switch windows. If
you only work on one thing at a time, then 32MB is just fine. That said, I
have not met anybody other than my wife, that works on one thing only. My
users have typically 4 very separate apps running, of which only one is
directly related to their jobs, Putting 128MB sticks in the workstations
took care of all the sudden ws reboot problems.
julius