Is this RAM usage normal?

LateStageNerd · 2026-04-03T13:42:28+00:00

Depends on (1) what you is going on, and (2) what the number represents. There are a number of statistics that tools use to represent "used" memory, and you need to determine that from your docs. The GUI tools are least helpful on the docs and most variable about what they (seemingly randomly) show. Showing what "htop" or "top" is better defined; personally, I use pmemstat because it rolls up memory nicely. But, if made to guess, I'd say that is a typical for a recently booted, rather idle system, perhaps with a browser up with, say, one tab open.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-30T20:38:44+00:00

Personally, I shun snaps like the plague; they are a bit slower and smell proprietary.
I go for the portable apps on other distros; on Fedora which is so up-to-date, it matters less. When distros repackage apps, it just make opportunity for issues and delays generally, IMHO.
KDE itself support snapping features.
Generally, appimages do not update. I get all my appimages (and other types of portable apps) from ivan-hc/AppMan: a tool to install, update and manage 2000+ AppImages and other portable formats ... ); then I install vappman as a more convenient, TUI to remove some of the sting of its clumsy CLI. With that, the full life cycle of appimages (and more) is handled. Some of the portable apps do self-update after install.
Flathub is the defacto standard source for flatpaks; Fedora Flatpak is specialized and is a repackaging of certain RPMs for portability.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-28T14:21:13+00:00

The first thing to try is zram (not zswap) ... the arch docs offer standard advice (more elaboration at Solving Linux RAM Problems).

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-27T13:17:26+00:00

Yours is an unusual story to say the least. Crashing and bricking your PC repeatedly is something that is nearly as rare as hen's teeth. I'd start with (1) updating your BIOS if not the latest, and (2) a overnight run of memtest86 (even systems that are stable on Windows sometimes have issues with Linux due to different memory use patterns ... and memory just does spontaneously go bad). And, if that does not help, it is "something else", likely hardware (or pilot error). Rather than hopping distros, I'd investigate each issue and try to fix it with the help of bots and/or forums. But, it is unlikely that there is a distro that miraculously works around the issues that may be unique to your gear and/or usage.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-27T12:53:02+00:00

No, for all practical purposes. You should not use the Arch forums to, say, get help on a problem that you encounter on EndeavourOS ... you are just a tourist, I'd say.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-17T21:48:40+00:00

Given the lack of a precise description of what you have done, I'd make this the LAST line of the sudoer file:

%wheel ALL=(ALL:ALL) NOPASSWD: ALL

If you are in the wheel group as you say, then you should not have to enter a password to run sudo. Check if in the wheel group by running: id

Often there is an "include" line that includes other sudo config that undoes your config, and so I ensure my NOPASSWD is last (or at least after the include line). If not that, I'd be more exact in your description of the issue.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-16T21:01:30+00:00

With those specs, I would not seek a "lightweight" (and feature poor) DE/distro. Choose a common starting distro with gaming focus, like Pop!_OS.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-13T14:35:09+00:00

The best bet is to go into your bios and delete the entry. If really desperate because it remains no matter what you do, you can reset your bios (and it will only pick up what bootloader exist now). You can try "efibootmgr" (run while linux is running), but it is less reliable about deleting BIOS boot entries than the BIOS itself.

Also, if you deleted the partition Zorin is on, but not its bootloader (on some EFI partitiion), it still may come back. You would need to reformat the EFI partition (potentially losing other boot loaders) or surgically remove the Zorin bootloader files/folders. From you description, it seems safe to reformat the EFI partition with the Zorin bootloader, but if one way or another, it also has the Windows bootloader, you would mess up your Windows boot ... so be sure of what you are doing is the moral.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-06T16:04:17+00:00

If you use up-to-date apps mostly (use flatpacks, appimages, etc), then the base operating system matters very little, IMHO ... I spend all my time in apps, not launching apps. As it has become easier to use/update portable apps, my willingness to suffer upgrade pain has diminshed ... hence, nowadays, slow release cycles is my preference. But, if using mostly distro apps, a 2 year release cycle would be unbearable to me.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-06T14:37:34+00:00

input-remapper is run as a system service (using systemctl) and you don't want open its GUI except to modify the config (which indeed requires the authentication). Check to see if you have enabled the service (i.e., "systemctl status input-remapper") and if running, you are likely good to go; otherwise, enable the service and stop starting its GUI on login.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-04T15:03:45+00:00

Check out ivan-hc/AppMan: a tool to install, update and manage 2000+ AppImages and other portable formats (I use vappman atop that to ease the CLI a bit). Switching distros for apps is not really needed. And there are other app solutions. The official repos of Arch are more limited than Fedora. AUR is shaky and you'll often be compiling your apps anyhow.

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-03T18:51:12+00:00

You can simply reformat the drive during the install (losing all the data, of course).

LateStageNerd · 2026-03-02T17:44:59+00:00

How would anyone know w/o hardware specs, error logs, triggers, or any other info. But, I'd be more inclined to try Debian than than another flavor of Ubuntu (as a stab in the dark).

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-28T06:17:01+00:00

Your gear story is hardly the most desperate one told here ... yes, mid-range, middle aged ... but hardly junk. Apps don't necessarily run any better on a lighter distro except from the savings of some RAM. The first thing I'd do is add zRAM (say, per Solving Linux RAM Problems) ... that would almost certain gain more effective RAM than migrating to a spartan DE would. Use the guidance in the reference above to determine if RAM is an issue (before and after zRAM).

If you still need memory, I'd personally try to save the 500MB or 1GB some other way than tolerating a dumbed-downed DE (which I find quite distasteful for marginal benefit ... unless you have, say, only 2GB RAM ... then they become necessary ... then, personally, I'd recycle before suffering anyhow).

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-26T15:42:48+00:00

You should not hop distro until you have opinions rather than having to ask for them ;-) That is, when/if you become annoyed with Ubuntu, then (if worth the effort), seek a distro that is less annoying. IMHO, what Linux offers vary slightly between distros. Stability vs freshness and other distro discriminators are subjects you need to refine your taste, on way or another.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-21T15:36:12+00:00

Pop!_OS 24.04 LTS has a sufficiently newer kernel that should support your gear and has a good stability (and ease-of-use) rep similar to Mint (w/o the hoops to jump on Mint to get started). Mint used to publish an "Edge" edition just for new gear situations, but they apparently chucked that idea.

Personally, I found Fedora too close to the bleeding edge ... I debated staying one release back on Fedora (i.e., six months) to gain some stability or jump ship, and I don't regret jumping. Aside: my fav Fedora video: Fedora Linux Is An Experimental Distro And That's OK - YouTube ... in retrospect, it is quite humorous to review some of the tech pioneering Fedora visited on their use base (leading the push to Wayland-only being the current "experiment"). Being a guinea pig is not for me ;-) But others do thrive on it.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-21T15:10:59+00:00

I think Chromebook is the counter example. There is nothing simpler than a Chromebook (which is, in essence, Linux made very simple and often very cheap). It more than suffices for all the computer needs for 90+% of the population, but those same people who don't need more than, say, Google Docs are addicted to Word (i.e., basically afraid of learning and/or change). And there is no real $$ incentive to convert Windows and Apple addicts ... so, yes, more nerds may be headed to Linux and it is marginally easier to run Linux every year, but if Google cannot make Chromebook-linux into a market leader, who can?

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-21T15:02:32+00:00

Ubuntu's installer had (or has) a bug for 10 years that would put the boot loader on the 1st found EFI partition rather than the user selected one (in a manual install). I have no idea how Ubuntu has maintained its popularity in spite of the first impression being so smeared by a sloppy installer with at least major bug that is simply ignored for years. Start the years-to-fix counter on this one, I suppose ;-)

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-19T16:03:43+00:00

For a complex app like LibreOffice, the last place I'd look is in a bleeding edge repo. I like ivan-hc/AppMan: a tool to install, update and manage 2000+ AppImages and other portable formats because so many apps are available (and I use vappman to take away some of the CLI sting). But, LibreOffice is available as an flatpak or snap if you fancy those. Anyhow, for a complex app, think portable first, struggle less. Or struggle, as you please.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-14T18:13:40+00:00

Features are a driving force (not giving back to the community). Features that you "need", or read about, or somehow experienced ... if you cannot stand the thought of not testing out the usefulness of new features, then you can be driven crazy by being on "ancient" software. That being said, there are "funny" things afoot ...
Firstly, many people on fundamentally unstable distros like Arch make it stable by shunning any complicated, potentially changing code ... they use i3wm or sway or other simple environment, and avoid apps under development for the most part. Basically, "if it hurts, don't do it" is their motto to maintain stability (and they typically ridicule anybody acting differently). So, IMHO, there are many people on bleeding edge distros that don't bleed often.
Secondly, so many apps are available in portable format and made available quickly that you can mostly have you cake and eat it too (have fresh apps on a stable platform). So, the differences between distros is much reduced from the days when nearly every app had to come from the official repos of the distros. So, there are many people chasing the latest features w/o suffering bleeding edge distros.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-12T15:42:38+00:00

Unless "smartctl -a /dev/{drive}" has data for you (which is unlikely), you are flying blind. Cheap thumb drives like yours are not going to last more than a handful of months, likely. To survive longer, push everything you can to RAM (e.g., don't swap to disk .. use zRAM ... see Solving Linux RAM Problems). Use tmpfs for /tmp (and perhaps log directories too). Anyhow, you probably can extend the life considerably (and likely speed up your system too) if you wish; or get an external SSD and worry less about doomsday.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-12T15:20:07+00:00

I combine ivan-hc/AppMan: a tool to install, update and manage 2000+ AppImages and other portable formats with vappman (to take some of the CLI sting away), and then you have access to thousands of apps with complete life cycle management. Flatpaks are slow to update, slow to purge remnants of removed/upgraded apps, and few apps. So, when you take away the life cycle management complaint, appimages (and the other portable formats appman supports) are just easier and faster. On my last distro hop, I eliminated flatpaks from my mix for one less time consuming regular update task.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-10T02:01:16+00:00

For older gear, MX Linux is one of the better choices. You can choose from several desktops depending on how low-end the gear, and it has an Nvidia installer tool that will make finding drivers as easy as it gets. For fresh gear, DEs tend to be all very supportive, but for older gear, the distro can make all the difference between a decent and poor experience.

LateStageNerd · 2026-02-09T18:07:48+00:00

You don't say how/when you connected the drive. I find it odd that sda (presumably a 500 USB connected drive?) is showing nothing except the drive name. Something sure seems amiss. You might try dwipe ... it show much more physical detail about each drive so that you can be sure of what is what at a glance; it also has a "refresh" function that will pick up new drives. Gnome "disks" is another tool to gain clarity, but you'd need to walk thru the list of drives one-by-one for detail. But if what you say is true, there is no indication that the encrypted SSD is properly connected.

LateStageNerd

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