[Galaxy S III Original Android Development] curiousrom:
466 MB of Free RAM - Running LineageOS Since 8 months!

I currently have 236 apps installed (screenshot). A bunch of them are for testing & comparing apps like several file managers, browsers, sensors apps, benchmarking, etc. I need to do a clean up & uninstall the useless ones but have been postponing it.

I attached a screenshot of > Settings > Developer Options > Running services showing 466 MB of free RAM, just for bragging a little bit and show how clean & debloated LineageOS 14.1 for S3 is. ;)

For a S3 i9300 launched in 2012 with a limited 827 MB of available RAM & running a fully functional Nougat 7.1.2 based firmware that is simply amazing IMO. Hats off & BIG THANKS to [MENTION=5405215]forkbomb444[/MENTION] & all the LineageOS Team for their incredible work! :good:

Amazing also is that I installed Lineage on November 23, 2017 on this S3 that is my daily driver 8 months ago as described in S3 i9300 LineageOS Super Clean Install & Samsung Firmware and I had exactly zero system freezing or unwanted reboots, boot loop or system crash.

That's with 100% stock LineageOS 14.1 (updated to 2018-07-26) on S3 i9300 + Open Gapps Pico + Lineage su add-on (super user for ROOT), no Magisk, no custom kernel and without any RAM or kernel tweaks, no Xposed, no Substratum (which I tried for a day w/ Swift Black theme), Sync disabled, kill all apps in Recents then a fresh hard restart, not using any apps & waiting for the system to stabilize.

Note that the apps included in Open Gapps count towards System RAM usage. See Open Gapps Variant Package Comparison

For months I had Open Gapps Nano but after trying the battery eating Smart Unlock, Google Search & testing & seeing that Device Health Services does not work on S3 LOS 14.1 I downgraded to the smaller Pico by dirty flashing Lineage followed by Pico, wiped Dalvik cache & Cache in TWRP Recovery, rebooted to System & all is OK since 2 months.

You can always download extra apps in Play Store.

That super clean install was followed by running S3 Black Screen Freezing Fix - Sudden Death Syndrome because suddenly after years trouble free I started getting daily black screen freezing on a custom Samsung based 4.3 caused by bad memory sectors & the defective eMMC memory chip on my S3. After a sloppy Lineage install the problem was still there but never came back after that clean install + fix.

I set the Settings > Display > Sleep to 5 or 10 minutes to have time to observe the max free RAM & use the Volume down + Power buttons to make the screenshot as using the Power menu > Screenshot or my favorite tiny & button saver Screenshot Tile [Root] app are using RAM when making the shots. That app includes a customizable timer & can make some screenshots that other methods cannot do as they close some popup windows and it is using only 2~3.5 MB in cached processes.

I noticed in your screenshot that Settings is using 35 MB. If you create a shortcut to Developer Options using the Settings widget it will open it directly then just navigate to Running services. That's why in mine it's using only 19 MB after stabilization. I searched like crazy & tried several shortcut maker apps but sadly it seems it is not possible to create a direct shortcut to Running services.

Those System widget shortcuts are not using any RAM contrary to most widgets and I have a bunch of direct shortcuts regrouped in a folder on my Home screen (screenshot). Also attached that low battery usage wallpaper, sorry no link as I don't remember where I got it.

There is also a Privacy Guard shortcut which opens directly > Settings > Personal > Privacy > Privacy Guard > 3 dots > Advanced > then navigate to Bootup for preventing apps for starting at boot. I do not prevent any System apps from starting at boot.

That is my favorite tweak of the S3 Lineage Battery Drain Troubleshooting & Optimization post & applied most of those tips to my setup.

Privacy Guard is my favorite LineageOS feature and in > Settings > Privacy > Privacy Guard it is Enabled by default. So when running an app for the first time I always tap the Privacy Guard notification and check what the app wants to do and control the permissions. Most of the time apps don't need to start at boot to work or eat RAM by running in the background & that includes WhatsApp or ES Explorer as seen in your attachment (which I also use) for example because the apps cache & memory management works quite well in LineageOS 14.1 for S3 if you don't overload upfront the RAM on boot with foreground apps.

The only system apps I disabled in Settings > Apps are: Email because I use the Gmail app & MTP Host as described in LineageOS S3 i9300 Known Issues Workarounds.

Also the way you setup > Settings > Google will affect RAM usage if you let it collect all the data it wants but that's for an other post.

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In LineageOS 14.1 for S3 disabling the MTP Host does not affect MTP file transfer protocol when connecting to a computer to transfer files. After connecting to a Windows PC for example > tap USB charging this device notification > select Transfer files which is using the MTP transfer protocol. screenshot

Follow the link in that known issues post to MTP Host as stopped - Crashing Bug Workaround Fix S3 LineageOS for more technical explanations.

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