May 2026 - Talk - lists.gtalug.org

Terminal Memory Usage
by Giles Orr 23 May '26

23 May '26

Recently I posted a gripe about `kitty`'s memory usage. This got me curious about memory usage of terminals in general, so I devised a test. It wasn't all that well controlled, but I did open eight different terminals on two different machines (one KDE/Wayland/Fedora 44 and one Openbox/X11/Debian 13, both amd64 with 16G of memory, recent kernels, etc.) and ran the same sequence of commands in all 16 terminals. I used `smem` to record the memory usage for the terminals, both right after they were opened and then after the sequence of commands was run. ==== Openbox / X11 / Debian 13 ==== PID Command Swap USS PSS RSS 115733 st 0 2592 3008 12788 115892 xterm 0 6808 7414 17732 114856 /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal 0 10252 14984 52836 115034 /usr/bin/kitten __atexit__ 0 19772 19783 21168 114615 alacritty 0 34224 43478 98396 115005 kitty 0 56376 66584 129180 115381 ptyxis 0 54760 67603 144640 PID Command Swap USS PSS RSS 115733 st 0 3396 3834 13780 115207 lxterminal 0 7800 11159 42656 115892 xterm 0 11640 12266 22748 114856 /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal 0 10692 15416 53340 115034 /usr/bin/kitten __atexit__ 0 21972 21983 23368 114615 alacritty 0 40188 49444 104408 115381 ptyxis 0 58252 71107 148316 115005 kitty 0 70716 80917 143568 ==== KDE / Wayland / Fedora 44 ==== PID Command Swap USS PSS RSS 30975 st 0 2924 3374 12832 31112 xterm 0 6460 6691 13204 30850 rxvt 0 8936 9440 19248 29259 /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal 0 12168 19005 53420 29417 /usr/bin/kitten __atexit__ 0 22852 22864 24464 29098 alacritty 0 25468 28837 73416 29401 kitty 0 46468 51520 105816 29690 ptyxis 0 73220 79204 141012 PID Command Swap USS PSS RSS 30975 st 0 3204 3820 13836 31112 xterm 0 9888 10119 16632 30850 rxvt 0 12872 13736 27096 29538 lxterminal 0 9824 15343 48804 29259 /usr/libexec/gnome-terminal 0 12660 19313 54056 29417 /usr/bin/kitten __atexit__ 0 22884 22896 24496 29098 alacritty 0 34188 37470 82580 29401 kitty 0 53048 58032 112936 29690 ptyxis 0 75060 81130 143284 The results are ... interesting: - I didn't think I would find a terminal with less memory use than `xterm` - I didn't think I would find a terminal that was more of memory hog than `kitty` (although if you add `kitten`'s memory usage, maybe it still wins) - I expected `gnome-terminal`'s memory usage to be in line with KDE's `ptyxis`, but `gnome-terminal` shows remarkably well in this test - the environment (Fedora vs Debian, Wayland vs X11) doesn't seem to have made much difference at all - of the terminals, `kitty` is the only one that can show pixel-perfect images with `timg` (that was one of the commands I ran) - `lxterminal` doesn't appear on either first recording, my mistake - `rxvt` was running but wasn't recorded properly on the X11 machine, don't know why - all of these terminals (and `smem`) are available from the distro repos - both Fedora and Debian I think I'm going to try out `st` some more. Not that my machines are that badly memory-constrained, but if it meets my other needs, why not use the least memory-hungry terminal? Since I commonly have about ten terminals running across 2-3 desktops, it adds up. If `st` doesn't work for me, I'm going to try out `gnome-terminal` some more. (I'm also likely to post this on my blog.) -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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Pocket size Linux
by Colin McGregor 19 May '26

19 May '26

Ever run across a project where you do the "that is a very neat project, but I can't quite see myself doing that"? Well this is one of those for me, building a functional computer inside an Altoids (breath mint) container, very neat, but not quite for me. The project is based around a Raspberry Pi Zero (thus a Linux machine), An extra bit of neat is there are some filler images in the video, where I was doing the "oh, that was taken on Spadina Ave. here in Toronto" or "that would have been taken inside the Home Hardware store on College St. near Spadina Ave." and so on. Seeing places I know made the video a bit more fun... https://youtu.be/j262kCYZxZI?si=rbeA5XKddP2wA7_t

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`ncdu` and `df` disagree
by Giles Orr 14 May '26

14 May '26

I have a system with Debian 13 installed. I was installing something on the machine and ran out of space on the root partition (big Docker image). After it aborted the install, here's the output of `df`: # df -h Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on ... /dev/mapper/brick_lvm-os2 24G 21G 2.6G 90% / ... Here's the output of `ncdu -x /`: 8.4 GiB [#############] /usr 3.2 GiB [#### ] /var 296.6 MiB [ ] /boot 99.5 MiB [ ] /root 19.4 MiB [ ] /etc 16.0 KiB [ ] /media 16.0 KiB [ ] /opt e 16.0 KiB [ ] /lost+found 12.0 KiB [ ] /mnt ... *Total disk usage: 11.9 GiB Apparent size: 11.6 GiB Items: 344362 You see the problem? `ncdu` thinks 12G is used, but `df` thinks that 21G is used. That's one hell of a discrepancy. A web search yielded the idea of running `lsof | grep deleted` which turned up Firefox as a major offender ... but killing FF got rid of its hundreds of "deleted" items while not changing what `df` thought at all. I remember you can hide disk usage under mount points. But that was an old trick one hundred years ago on multi-user systems. One that I'd be unlikely to play on myself as this isn't a multi-user system. Other things I checked: no, there isn't a giant swap file sitting in the root. No, this problem doesn't exist on my main machine (or, I think, any of my others). The one unusual thing about this system is that ZFS is installed and there are two other mirrored drives. Root is hosted on a separate drive, so I don't think ZFS would be quietly eating huge chunks of this non-ZFS drive? (I am not a ZFS expert.) This is an LVM system and I have spare space that I can throw at the problem - but I'd really really like to understand what's going on! Anybody seen anything like this? Any ideas what would cause this discrepancy or how to track it down? Thanks. -- Giles https://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr(a)gmail.com

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Ubuntu Pro
by Evan Leibovitch 14 May '26

14 May '26

Hi all. Many thanks to the person (I can't recall) who mentioned at last night's meeting that Ubuntu Pro was free of charge to individuals for up to five systems. (Odd. For some reason, even though I have only registered one system, my Ubuntu One dashboard says that I have two -- and it won't give any info about who the other one might be...) For anyone here using the service, are you also using the Landscape system management software? I've been using Cockpit to manage my server and wonder if there's value in switching to the Ubuntu-blessed solution. Thanks! -- Evan Leibovitch, Toronto Canada @evanleibovitch / @el56

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Bad review of Fedora 44
by William Park 12 May '26

12 May '26

Review of Fedora 44: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20260511#fedora

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GTALug Monthly Meeting: DNS 101
by Alan Heighway 09 May '26

09 May '26

GTALug Monthly Meeting: DNS 101 <https://www.gtalug.org/?p=420> Topic: Fixing your DNS for a better Internet Experience The Domain Name System (DNS), used to translate domain names into Internet Protocol numerical addresses, provides a vital function without which the Internet as we know it could exist. This session will show how the DNS can be even more valuable to Internet users, showing techniques that reduce exposure to malware and phishing while increasing privacy and control over web-based advertising. Come join us Speaker: Evan Leibovich Agenda: 1. Business 2. Presentation / Discussion 3. Adjournment Date / Time: May 12th, 2026 19:30 EST Location: Online using Nextcloud: https://hub.gtalug.org/call/7m45sf9i *A*lan *H*eighway <http://heighway.ca/> heighway.ca 416-712-5247 VA3WAH / VA3YKZ [image: Please consider the environment before printing]

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Worth waiting for 'buntu 26.04.1?
by Evan Leibovitch 09 May '26

09 May '26

Hi all. Currently running a Kubuntu 24.04 LTS box as a media/file server. Not much load unless it's transcoding something for Plex. We know that 26.04 LTS is out but I've always tried to follow a rule to never download a *.0 release, especially for anything important. But the current 24.04 kernel is 6.17 which is vulnerable to Copy Fail, 26.04.1 won't be released until August to upgrade the kernel. Is anyone using 26.04 LTS now? Is there any reason to wait till the .1 update? - Evan

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Cheaper fibre internet could be on the way as CRTC finalizes wholesale rates
by Ron 09 May '26

09 May '26

Good news & bad news on the Fibre Optic Wholesale Pricing set by CRTC. Good news: rates have been set nation-wide. Bad news: Teksavvy isn't happy with the rates, and they do seem high. Bell's flanker brand sells retail pricing lower than the wholesale pricing, for example. I'd been looking forward to this day, but I'm somewhat disappointed. It's good for furthering fibre deployments vs cable, but a bit costly. Wondering if rates will be reviewed in, say, 5 years? mobilesyrup.com Cheaper fibre internet could be on the way as CRTC finalizes wholesale rates <#> The CRTC has finalized the rates for wholesale fibre internet, which should provide more certainty for ISPs looking to offer fibre internet. 🔗 https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/04/24/crtc-finalize-wholesale-fibre-rates/ <https://mobilesyrup.com/2026/04/24/crtc-finalize-wholesale-fibre-rates/> > /“CNOC is disappointed that the Commission did not test its rates > against market costs. Incumbent flanker brands like Bell’s eBox > already sell fibre Internet at retail prices nearly 40 per cent below > what the CRTC’s final wholesale rate alone would cost an independent > provider — before an independent provider adds a single dollar of its > own costs.”/

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New discovery -- btop
by William Park 07 May '26

07 May '26

(double posted, so reply to your list) I just discovered a new tool: *btop*. What I found useful are - cpu frequency - network speed

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Bad review of Xubuntu 26.04
by William Park 04 May '26

04 May '26

(Double posted. Reply to your list.) FYI, pretty bad review of Xubuntu 26.04: https://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20260504#xubuntu

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