Hi,
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IIRC a default GNOME workstation install consumes about 700-800MB of RAM when logged into the desktop on a 1G RAM system. After I've done a bunch of hacks / tweaks to remove a long list of unnecessary (1) processes I have it down to around 400MB of RAM.
Note I'm not trying to blame anyone here; and especially not the authors/maintainers of the mentioned packages, but I do wish that we (the Fedora project) could make some time to go over this list and try to stop a whole bunch of programs / daemons from always starting when that is (IMHO) not really necessary. I would really like to see Fedora to become somewhat more lean / go on a diet here, which is something which I think would benefit everyone.
The problem is that every time this conversation starts... you end up with 200 people all wanting some other program to be stopped/not run/removed but not something they actually think is essential. And instead we end up finding we needed to add one or two things because a lot of users wanted this or that. Workstation like Server like Cloud are going to be general operating systems which are built around fitting the majority of problems people want solved versus a small set of things you or I want in a system. This leads to compromises.. a lot of them.
Given that I can halve the base processes RAM set with some hacks I think that it is fair to say that there are still way too much things starting by default.
I have actually been considering doing a Fedora workstation light spin for budget x86 machines with 1G / 2G of RAM and an eMMC.
I agree and think that a spin would be needed. There is going to be an audience for it, but I expect it is a distinct set who are looking for it on small environments and can put up with not having access to 'XYZ app which needs 12 GB of ram out the block'
Regards,
Hans
1) I do realize that what is unnecessary or not is somewhat in the eye of the beholder.