Joseph Haig <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > --- Carl Johnson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > gustavo halperin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > Hello > > > > > > I commonly use the next applications: Mozilla, gnu-emacs, gv, xpdf > > > and many xterminals. The problem is that after many days without > > > restart the system the memory grow a little more any day and after > > > aprox. 20 days I have all my 775MB occupied by the system and even > > if > > > I close all the applications the memory occupied still the same, > > just > > > reboot the system free this memory. > > > My question is how release the memory that is not in use any more? > > > > I have similar problems, and I know it isn't used by the buffers and > > cache as others have already suggested. I have to exit from > > X-windows, so it appears that X has some major memory leaks. My > > system seems to lose about 50MB/day, so that means I have to restart > > X-windows every couple of weeks before I fill up RAM and swap. > > > > Does anybody else have any suggestions on how to trace those memory > > leaks without rebuilding the entire system from source? I have > > already tried 'xrestop', but it doesn't appear to be the > > applications, > > so it must be at the server or library level. I use similar > > applications as the original writer, except I use Firefox instead of > > Mozilla, and I use wmaker without gnome or KDE. > > I haven't used it myself, but I am told that valgrind is useful for > this sort of thing.
I am currently running in AMD-64 mode, and valgrind isn't available yet in stable, but maybe I'll try it from unstable. Thanks for the suggestion. > However, I agree with the other posters who state that the memory is > probably not being leaked but is in fact getting buffered and cached. > How much swap space is being used? Swap should only be used if the > memory has really run out so if it is hardly being used at all then you > do not have a problem. I have about 500MB each of RAM and swap. I start out with no swap and about 200MB free (mostly cache and buffers), and that drops about 50MB per day with no changes in programs. Once the system drops to about 100MB in buffers and cache, it starts eating swap, still about 50MB per day. I just realized that I'm not sure that 'ps' shows nothing growing, and it should show even X growing, so I'll monitor it for the next few days. I also thought I saw some mention of new swap policy in 2.6, so maybe swap is just holding other information for quick access. If that is the case, then I can test it by trying a 'swapoff -a', and see if it is able to free the swap space. Thanks for the information. -- Carl Johnson [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
