I have been a happy Netrunner user since Netrunner 4 Dryland was a RC release. This question is in no way meant to disparage Netrunner. With the release of Ubuntu 14.04 I have been thinking about updating my office and laptop operating systems. I have multiboot so that I can test various distributions while keeping my work install. Prior to Netrunner Dryland my work install was Mint 9. The following memory usage (measured on system monitor) is interesting. The difference between Mint 17 KDE and Netrunner 14 is striking. What might be making the difference and what do I gain in Netrunner 14 over Mint 17 KDE?
Linux Mint 9 Gnome 2 – 281.8 MiB
Linux Mint 17 Cinnamon – 458.9 MiB
Linux Mint 17 KDE (running on USB) – 467.5 MiB
Kubuntu 14.04 – 648.5 MiB
Netrunner 4.2.1 (dryland-se) – 799.1 MiB
Netrunner 14 Frontier – 1.1 GB
Hi okie,
thanks for reporting back 1.1 GB is insanely high!
Here are two screenshots of a running Netrunner 14:
First is a screenshot of it running on my 64bit full powered desktop PC:
[attachment=318]
750MB (which would be less than version 4.2).
BUT: N14 has also Firefox started, that is INCLUDING another 200-250 MB (FF30 is preloaded in the background for an instant start, you should see it, if you examine the tasklist).
The second screenshot shows the same system with firefox closed:
[attachment=320]
Now it is already down to 540MB (less than Kubuntu 14.04)
The third is showing my netbook with just 1GB RAM (Firefox isnt preloaded there, because the preload mechanism is testing if you have 2 GB or more RAM):
[attachment=319]
That’s 357MB for fully loaded system (even less than Mint 17 Cinnamon…)
We target to streamline KDE 4.x with each release (starting around KDE 4.7), mostly due to KWIN performance improvements, let’s see if we can find and eliminate the cause…
Thanks for responding. It seemed the memory usage dropped after rebooting after updating to Netrunner final release (I had installed as RC) to about 935 MB and even more when I stopped Firefox running in the background to 685 MB. This still is high it seems to me, but I don’t really understand all the processes running in the background.
685MB on a 4GB machine seems far more reasonable (compare Kubuntu 14.04).
Some parts of KDE are auto-adjusting themselves to the total memory available, so as you can see akonadi and the mysql (which is used by akonadi) take up more RAM on your 4GB machine as my 1GB netbook (where akonadi and mysql are also running in the back as can be seen in the process list).
So I either wouldn’t worry about it, or, if you don’t intend to use any services related to akonadi like telepathy, kdepim like kmail or kadressbook, etc., disable it to free even more memory:
“To ensure that Akonadi is no longer started, check that no applications require it at login. In particular, open the Plasma clock applet preferences, go to Calendar and uncheck Show events to prevent Plasma from requesting information from Akonadi and thus allowing it to start.”
akonadictl stop
To disable it, set StartServer=false in .config/akonadi/akonadiserverrc:
[QMYSQL]
Name=akonadi
…
StartServer=false
Hope this is helpful. 
Thanks for your reply and explanation. It makes sense to me.
One last comment. Starbuck’s reply cleared some things up for me and got me to thinking. I tried to set up my Linux Mint 17 KDE and my Netrunner 14 installs with the same applications and utilities that I rely on day to day in my Netrunner 4.2.1 work install. I did not try to make Mint “like” Netrunner. With that done and Firefox stopped in the process table of both installs and no applications open except KSysGuard, Netrunner 14 was using 824 MB of memory and Mint 17 KDE was using 855 MB. Mint is a fine distribution and I would recommend it to anyone, but I just find Netrunner to be more refined and easier to use. That, of course, is a subjective judgment and YMMV.
Kudos to Netrunner 14. I will be beginning the process of making it ready for my everyday work.
Thanks, Starbuck!
Thanks okie!
Mint is an excellent distribution, especially their Cinnamon Edition, which has advanced a great deal since its first release.
With Netrunners sponsor Blue Systems mainly concentrating on porting KDE4 -> Qt5 for the last 9-12 months, it was hardly possible to keep up with all the extra bells and whistles Team Mint put in their Cinnamon release. We do believe though, with the Plasma5 release now being imminent, to catch up and innovate again on the new base, starting with Netrunner 15 coming in early 2015.