Fedora Developers Discuss Ways To Improve Linux Interactivity In Low-Memory Situations

Similar to the recent upstream Linux kernel discussions over the poor Linux desktop experience when in memory pressure situations particularly with systems having limited amounts of RAM, Fedora developers are discussing ways to improve this experience as well.

While hopefully the upstream Linux kernel code can be improved to benefit all distributions for low-memory Linux desktops, Fedora developers at least are discussing their options for in the near-term improving the experience. With various easy "tests", it's possible to easily illustrate just how poorly the Linux desktop responds when under memory pressure. Besides the desktop interactivity becoming awful under memory pressure, some argue that an unprivileged task shouldn't be able to cause such behavior to the system in the first place.

Most of the Fedora developer/user ideas come down to either improving the out-of-memory killer (or adding a user-space solution) and/or improving the tooling around systemd and running GNOME processes as systemd user services and from there placing memory limits on those services. Improving the out-of-memory (OOM) killing is something that has been discussed upstream as well.

From the discussion so far it's still quite active but no concrete ideas yet for how to enhance the Linux desktop experience for those with limited amounts of RAM.