Hello!

Which version of Firefox are you using? I newer version might help reduce CPU/Mem load.  You might also try Google Chrome, there's a linux installer available - I've found chrome to be slightly better at memory management and a bit speedier... (Although new versions of firefox may negate that advantage)

Generally, Flash does consume an huge amount of resources, so if it's required for you to use it you might just have to grin and bear it - you might also consider talking to the people who require flash to see if an alternative solution is available - most functionality can be replicated with "HTML5" now. 

Make sure your version of flash is 64 bit as well.

There might also be something I've missed, in which case someone else on this list should feel free to chime in.

-Chris

On 2012-11-13, at 12:38 PM, Yasha Karant <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Right now, my quad core SL 6x X86-64 workstation is not responding very 
> well; a quick look at top reveals:
> 
> Tasks: 181 total,   2 running, 178 sleeping,   0 stopped,   1 zombie
> Cpu(s): 41.1%us,  7.2%sy,  0.0%ni, 51.3%id,  0.4%wa,  0.0%hi,  0.0%si, 
> 0.0%st
> Mem:   8196468k total,  8002116k used,   194352k free,     9344k buffers
> Swap:  2048252k total,  1753152k used,   295100k free,   543572k cached
> 
>   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND 
> 
>  3417 ykarant   20   0 1679m 738m 8752 S 122.2  9.2   9239:30 
> plugin-containe
>  3342 ykarant   20   0 2995m 2.2g  18m R 94.9 28.2   8309:43 firefox 
> 
>  2051 root      20   0 4448m 3.1g 9440 S  1.8 39.6 443:40.39 Xorg 
> 
>  2793 ykarant    9 -11  559m 3028 1860 S  1.8  0.0  20:04.64 pulseaudio 
> 
>  3113 ykarant   20   0  321m 6904 5292 S  1.8  0.1 211:10.01 gkrellm 
> 
> 18994 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  1.8  0.0   0:00.05 kworker/2:3 
> 
> 19318 ykarant   20   0 15136 1140  812 R  1.8  0.0   0:00.04 top 
> 
> 31800 ykarant   20   0 1247m  58m  952 S  1.8  0.7  68:45.24 java 
> 
>     1 root      20   0 19448  872  660 S  0.0  0.0   0:04.12 init 
> 
>     2 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.81 kthreadd 
> 
>     3 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:06.58 
> ksoftirqd/0
>     5 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.03 
> kworker/u:0
>     6 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 
> migration/0
>     7 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.26 watchdog/0 
> 
>     8 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 
> migration/1
>    10 root      20   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:09.72 
> ksoftirqd/1
>    12 root      RT   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.44 watchdog/1
> 
> Note that from above:
> 
>  3417 ykarant   20   0 1679m 738m 8752 S 122.2  9.2   9239:30 
> plugin-containe
>  3342 ykarant   20   0 2995m 2.2g  18m R 94.9 28.2   8309:43 firefox 
> 
> 
> My institution requires the use of Adobe flash (as well as java), and 
> thus it seems that plugin-container is being used.  Is there an 
> alternative approach?  The above seems to me a total waste of machine 
> resources.
> 
> Yasha Karant