It is definitely better overall with ML in that it is no longer ridiculously slow but memory consumption for typical set of tasks still is way higher than either of Linux and Windows.
For instance I have KDE4 running on Linux with Firefox, Amarok, Kopete, Konsole and all other default services (ssh etc). Used memory is 1.1GB.
I've ML running with Firefox, Terminal.app, Activity Monitor in addition to the defaults. Any my used memory is 3.92GB. Wired is 1.75GB and Swap used is 11MB!
My experience with Windows 7 is also lot better than ML - it tends to be bit more than Linux but in the same ballpark.
Edit: To put this in perspective - I just realized that my work laptop (that I RDP into and never reboot) with all possible bloatware loaded and running - Word, Outlook, RDP, Lync 2010, Java Backup process, Enterprisey stuff, Firefox with couple tabs etc. is taking up only 2.83 GB! Apple really has a memory usage problem with OS X.
Windows and Linux don't leave unused memory around - both use it heavily for page cache. However what we have a problem here with is active/resident memory use and/or VM subsystem making no so smart decisions(this part seems to have gotten better with ML).
So the end result is that when Windows and Linux can be quite usable with 2GB RAM with a rotational disk, for similar workload OS X slows down quite a bit.
Comments
It is definitely better overall with ML in that it is no longer ridiculously slow but memory consumption for typical set of tasks still is way higher than either of Linux and Windows.
For instance I have KDE4 running on Linux with Firefox, Amarok, Kopete, Konsole and all other default services (ssh etc). Used memory is 1.1GB.
I've ML running with Firefox, Terminal.app, Activity Monitor in addition to the defaults. Any my used memory is 3.92GB. Wired is 1.75GB and Swap used is 11MB!
My experience with Windows 7 is also lot better than ML - it tends to be bit more than Linux but in the same ballpark.
Edit: To put this in perspective - I just realized that my work laptop (that I RDP into and never reboot) with all possible bloatware loaded and running - Word, Outlook, RDP, Lync 2010, Java Backup process, Enterprisey stuff, Firefox with couple tabs etc. is taking up only 2.83 GB! Apple really has a memory usage problem with OS X.
Unused memory is wasted. You should be complaining about the system that doesn't use all available memory.
Windows and Linux don't leave unused memory around - both use it heavily for page cache. However what we have a problem here with is active/resident memory use and/or VM subsystem making no so smart decisions(this part seems to have gotten better with ML).
So the end result is that when Windows and Linux can be quite usable with 2GB RAM with a rotational disk, for similar workload OS X slows down quite a bit.