Launcher process not closing

This is working as intended.

But why does it work that way? What advantages are there? Right now, the launcher process never closes and is in the background using resources that it doesn't need.

Currently, after I launch minecraft, I always go into htop and kill the launcher process, because it's using resources I'd rather leave for anything else.

Because it keeps logging various game events that can be useful if something goes wrong. If the game crashes, the launcher will pop back up, and provide some options for looking up the problem or reporting the crash.

On Launcher 1.4.4 it is not Working as Intended
If you select "Close launcher when game starts" in the Profile, the Launcher stays.

Launcher ~200M
MC ~500M
Launcher stays open on "Close launcher when game starts"

The issue, at least in my opinion, is that the statement "Close launcher when the game starts" does not accurately represent the actual effect. A better name would be "Hide launcher and close when the game closes".

It is (somewhat) logical for the launcher to remain open - That is not a bug. The launcher re-opens if the game crashes (confirmable if you start the game, and press and hold f3 and c for ten seconds while in a world). It also handles logging (IIRC).

A solution here would be to rename the option to what I stated above, and potentially add a second mode to truly close the launcher (though that would disable logging and crash handling, so it isn't the best idea; a warning would be needed).

@@unknown:
Your solution here probably would be to create a script that starts the launcher with less memory (the -Xms and -Xmx args help here). I don't know what a good size is, unfortunately, but you can experiment with it.

The solution is, simply closing the launcher process, which should be an option.
Especially if you deselect "automatically ask mojang for assistance with fixing crashes" then the launcher does nothing at MC runtime, even the crach report gets generated. (though not immediately displayed)