New Low-Memory-Monitor Project Can Help With Linux's RAM/Responsiveness Problem

Red Hat developer Bastien Nocera has announced Low-Memory-Monitor as a new project he's been tackling to try to help with the Linux desktop use-cases when responsiveness issues due to low RAM / memory pressure problems. Low-Memory-Monitor paired with complementary solutions could help improve the Linux desktop's handling on low-end systems and other desktops/laptops when simply running short on RAM.

Low-Memory-Monitor has been in the works the past few weeks following all the public discussions over how Linux poorly deals with low-memory situations. The Low-Memory-Monitor daemon monitors the amount of free physical memory and will signal other user-space applications when such pressure occurs. This can alert session managers and other key programs to the situation so they can in turn either free some memory themselves, trigger applications to quit/pause, or other behavior of their choosing.

The Low-Memory-Monitor effort is inspired by Android's lowmemorykiller daemon, Facebook OOMD, and Endless Computer's PSI-Monitor.

The hope is that using Low-Memory-Monitor along with other improvements like Fedora's usage of Zswap can lead to a more responsive Linux desktop when hitting memory problems. This new Low-Memory-Monitor project is being hosted on FreeDesktop.org and more details in this blog post.