GNOME as Desktop Environment, Leaking

  So with the WFH days due to Covid-19, I spend more time on my desktop, since it is more comfortable sitting at the desk, than over the laptop.  I was working using GNOME, which was ok for a while, but through out the day I noticed that my memory usage was at 100%, and my system starts to swap like crazy.

  I switched over to KDE Plasman, and it looks like having the same number of browser tabs/windows open I use only up to 5.1GB of RAM vs. 8GB and it doesn't seem to grow over time. I tested it for 3 days now, and KDE Plasma is way more stable and memory friendly than GNOME.  So I actually decided to un-install GNOME all together, I still have XFCE if Plasma decides to mess with me.  I did have one instance when it was not willing to start-up for what ever reason.  Maybe one day GNOME will become stable and memory friendly. I like it's simplicity and being un-cluttered. Plasma is ok, though at times it can be over configurable :)  

  Anyhow, I also ordered an SSD for my desktop, so I'll probably be replacing my Ubuntu system to Manjaro.  I prefer the rolling release, and over the year or so I've been using it have not experienced any issues.

  I will be an interesting switch, since I have a LVM HDD setup, the new SSD will have a fresh Manjaro install, and I'll try to mount the LVM, once up and running. Enough of this rant.... peace

Upgrade to the little laptop

  I was thinking of purchasing a new laptop since I felt like my little trusty Acer is aging. Instead, I decided to upgrade it. It is after all out of warranty, so I got it an 8GB RAM Upgrade, and a 240GB SSD, well I have to say, it's a new experience. I put a fresh install of Manjaro Linux which I highly recommend.  I used GNOME as my Desktop Environment but recently switched to KDE.  I originally had Xfce, but it has a limitation that I couldn't find a workaround for, so I went with GNOME and I am now experimenting with KDE. I have to say, Plasma KDE is nice, and its memory footprint won't be a problem with 8GB of RAM.  The real bottleneck I some times hit is the CPU

About info below:
Operating System: Manjaro Linux
KDE Plasma Version: 5.17.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.64.0
Qt Version: 5.13.2
Kernel Version: 5.4.2-1-MANJARO
OS Type: 64-bit
Processors: 2 × Intel® Celeron® CPU N3050 @ 1.60GHz
Memory: 7,6 GiB of RAM







  I can't say I hit it often, but I noticed a few times :) I know it's not that hard, but for my home usage, I think I can live with it. My neighbor has an HP Laptop, with an Intel i3, 8GB, and SSD laptop. One day he asked me if he should upgrade, I just can't see why would a home user who uses the laptop for browsing Facebook, maybe watching Youtube would need a stronger machine?  I mean really, for those tasks you don't need a laptop a tablet would do the job just fine. I do know that he's using Windows 10, which explains why the machine feels slow and flimsy. I still don't understand or know why Windows machines manage to slow down over time. Every few years you should do a fresh install to keep it lean and fast.
  For example, I have my Desktop, which now uses Ubuntu 19.10 which was upgraded over the years from 15.04, that's 4 years of upgrades keep in mind that its full upgrades. I won't say that I don't see some problems, most likely from some manual tinkering that I did. I do prefer the Manjaro rolling release method, always fresh, and up to date. So far I have not run into issues with it. I did manage to mess up an Archlinux install, simply because the upgraded Kernel did not support my laptop screens brightness settings a few years back so I had a black screen :) a few hours later, I got it fixed thanks to the community, but I ditched it back then, switched to Antergos on one laptop, and Manjaro on another. Antergos is no more, so that laptop became an Archlinux, Manjaro though still runs on my main laptop. I am considering buying a 120GB or maybe even a small 64GB SSD for my desktop, and start fresh with Manjaro on it.
  Anyhow, I just wanted to share some thoughts, there you have it. I hope 2020 I will be more active "as I say every year" :)

dumped Windows10 and fully using Linux @home

  I have not used Windows 10 at home since this post in October 2017, and I do not miss much in from it.  One thing I do miss is the automated photo uploads to Amazon Drive, which I have also dumped, other than that there is nothing I miss from it.  I also did a photo shoot for a wedding in the family, and even my low end Acer R3-131T laptop dealt with it perfectly.

  I actually had high hopes for the continuous upgrades in Windows 10, but they proved to be illusions.  Ubuntu does better with full version upgrades than Windows 10 deals with it's rolling or continuous upgrades, not to mention OS's like Manjaro linux and Antergos linux where they are always fresh.
  Anyhow, it looks like it's always the case that I end up using linux on my home machines/laptops, there are no real good reasons for me to use Windows, since I do not play games which seem to be the only reason to have a Windows machine.
  For work, I'm getting a Mac OS, it's a better match since I can use Bash, and all the tools needed for my work are available on it.  It's a sable hardware and a matching OS that really just works.  There are times when I would say even a Linux laptop is efficient enough and even better than a windows machine (I've had to re-install my Windows 10 work laptop once because of some profile corruption), but you can't get Linux in an Enterprise environment, unfortunately.
 
  

I think I'll move back to linux

  After writing this post, I started using my old laptop, with Artengos.  And it's been some time since I turned on the Acer laptop.  I did try Manjaro Linux live on it via USB, and honestly browsing was much faster than on windows 10.  I have moved my pictures from Amazon Drive to SmugMug, which was the main reason I decided to get a Windows (10) just because it was already on it, to automate the upload of images.  As I mentioned earlier Amazon changed the plan from $12/year unlimited photo's to $59/year for 1TB.  While, I probably won't reach the 1TB in say 5-10 years, I lost trust in them.  Who knows when will they change again?
  In the mean time, I also found a way to move my backed up images from Amazon Drive, directly into SmuMug, who I've used for quiet some time, now they will be used exclusively for my picture's/memories stories, as their service is top notch, with excellent customer support.  Compared to Amazons support which is below average, it took them about 1 week to reset my account as it was hacked. Each contact from support gave me a round around the corner, and back. Until I took it to twitter, I believe then it was like 4-6 hours to resolution.
  Anyhow that's my rant about my backup strategy, and reasons to dump Windows.  The other, really good reason to dump it, is it's huge upgrades, that take for ever, on a low end machine.  I don't have a powerhouse, I don't need one for home use, but I'd like to have something that isn't a slug.  And apparently it's windows that makes it a slug.  It's not made for low end Celeron machines, two cores is not enough for it. Come to think of it, my phone has more cores :P
  Anyhow, I'm hoping to make the full transition back to fully linux OS at home in a month or so. Just doing the copying and moving of my more important files.  My main backup strategy is Google Drive, and SmugMug for my images.  I don't need more at this time.  Alright :) that's it for now be back once I move totally to linux on the little Acer laptop

Back to Linux? or not, not sure yet

  I'm really starting to get tired of Windows 10, and it's updates.  I thought I will give it a try, truth be told I bought a cheap hardware, with the option of being able to use it as a tablet since it has a touch screen, Acer 11.6". I've had it for less than 2 years.  The reason I got it was because I couldn't find a way to automatically sync to Amazon Drive, and Google Photo's. Well that didn't work out too well since the Amazon drive client pegged my underpowered CPU, and Amazon wasn't able to help. That was fine I found an alternative, but then Amazon decided to change their pricing plan, so now I lost trust in them. First they had the perfect plan at $12 which I started to use back in March 2015. Well Amazon decided to cancel that plan, and went with a unlimited storage either $79 or $59/year, which really didn't last that long as that plan was also canceled and now it's $59/year for 1 TB of storage.  While I know that it will take me another maybe 10 years to fill it up with pictures, what assurance do I have they won't change again? I'll just stick to SmugMug.  I've been using them for a while, but never thought of them as a backup service, they still offer a great unlimited photo's since 2009, so I trust they will stick to their plan, and honor what they offer.  Great organization possibilities, excellent sharing, and embedding options. Also another plus, they have integration with Amazon Drive, so I can transfer pictures from Amazon Drive to SmugMug.
  Anyhow, back to my rant about the laptop which was so sluggish and slow. I remember once waiting for more than an hour for a Windows update to finish. Not a re-install, but an update. Also surfing the net was becoming annoying, Chrome (I wouldn't dare start) Firefox was kinda OK, but still slow, click on a link and wait for the spinning hour.  My Internet connection is fine, as I tested with my desktop, tablet, and phone.
  I grabbed my old beaten Dell Insprion 1318 laptop, and installed Artengos Linux on it.  And started testing/playing with it, this old laptop was faster than my less than 2 year old one, though spec's wise, they are similar.(I'm actually typing this post on it)  So I grabbed the newer laptop, and tried another Linux distribution. Manjaro Linux live USB.  And it worked fast, browsing was lighting fast compared to browsing on Windows 10.  Is it the anti-virus software?  Well that's required, so un-installing that is not an option.  Background processes were keeping the CPU busy, that's fine, but sometimes to the stage that Firefox becomes un-responsive. And after a bit of digging, it was the windows updates.
  What I'm trying to decide on, is if I need windows10 at all.  I'm contemplating installing Manjaro Linux XFCE on the newer laptop, or Artengos Linux, both are Arch Linux derivatives, which I also used for some time, before I lent the laptop to a relative, for them I installed Ubuntu.
  I like Artengos Linux, works like a charm on this old laptop, even photo processing isn't a pain.  Photo editing software is abundant on Linux, some are great, others have a big learning curve (but they work)

A nightmare to avoid

  I had one of my important accounts hacked.  How, I probably re-used the same username and/or password across too many places, well seems one of them had a breach and they logged in to my amazon account. They changes the email, and I was locked out. I called customer service right away, but they said it will take 48 hours, but the account is locked.  I was like great, I can wait 48 hours no problem.  I then received an email from amazon that I need to call them. Ok, I call them up, just to be told, "Oh, you need to wait another 24 hours, it seems the agent failed to file your information to the correct department"  Needless to say this was after waiting 2 days for some response.  Now I'm talking about amazon.com you know the huge retail company, and online services provider, that has gazillion computing power, and they need 48 or 24 or 72 hours to reset your account? I understand they outsource their support and customer care, but in this day and age, they can't afford to have, umm let's say 5 paid employees with higher privileges where ever that customer care center is, who can handle this? Naturally I took it on to twitter, and miracles do happen, I did receive an email and got it all sorted out, after 5 or 6 calls to customer support, I spoke to 2 supervisors supposedly, and chatted with their twitter bot a few times.
  The moral of the story, if you have 2 step authentication available, set it up, protect your accounts. It wasn't Amazon's fault, that I did not secure my account properly, but really 3 days to get it sorted out, even if that manager (or so called password department) was on the moon, it shouldn't take 48 hours (as they originally lied) or 72 hours. Stay secure, and use a password manager app.  Not the one that was hacked recently :)

Back to the windows world

  In my previous post, I wrote that I got a Lenovo Windows10 laptop, well since then, I've sold it and got another one.  This one is an Acer, the R3, 11.6", touch screen little white clamshell laptop.  The 14" wasn't to my taste as I prefer smaller screens, and I don't need a beast since I don't do, or use anything that really requires a strong CPU.  I have to admit the two core Celeron processor is a bottleneck at times, but I can live with it, since it's a passive cooling laptop, no fans, no noise.  The one thing I wish it had would be an SSD.  The reason I switched back to Windows was automation, and my hobby.  I love and enjoy taking pictures, of nature, life, and family, and I want to make sure those memories are saved, not just locally or on an external hard drive, but in the cloud as well.  I couldn't achieve that with Linux, since I couldn't find a single automated solution to upload my images to google photo's, amazon, or smugmug.  Currently the google photo's is the only fully automated solution, the amazon client is semi-automatic, as I need to tell it which folder to upload, as is the case with the smugmug solution.  I'm happy with this as I have a great workflow to check out my images, edit if needed, then just drop the pictures in a folder which then get's uploaded. The Chrome-book had one disadvantage, I couldn't sort, and pick my pictures it would just automatically upload all, then I would need to go and pick and choose online.  The linux laptop didn't do the auto backup for me (except when I used Crashplan for backup) but with that I couldn't retrieve and view my images easily as with both the google photos, and amazon photos.  All in all, I am happy with this little laptop, and to my surprise, Windows10 isn't bad either. I stopped actively using windows with Windows XP.  So I could say that Windows10 is a step in the right direction.  I would say I wish they had good tablet offering when I bought my Android tablet, and maybe even a decent phone offering starting to lean towards getting a Lumia, as it's would be well integrated with my laptop.  The Apple eco-system is great, phone/tablet and laptops work great together, but their prices are a bit high to my taste.  This little laptop I got is 1/3 the price of the 11" MacBook Air, and it can do everything the MacBook could, though slower no doubt.
  I think my next move will be either to change my tablet to a Windows10 one or replace my phone.