Re: Low memory hacks

["Nikolay V. Shmyrev" <nshmyrev yandex ru>]

В Птн, 29/02/2008 в 13:32 +0000, Brian Nitz пишет:
> Kalle Vahlman wrote:
> > 2008/2/29, Nickolay V. Shmyrev <nshmyrev yandex ru>:
> >   
> >>  Heh, I also would like to delete all .po files if only I knew how to
> >>  keep translations :)
> >>     
> >
> > Deleting .po:s would be futile as those are just the sources from
> > which the actual (binary) files loaded are compiled ;)
> >   
> I agree that deleting the .po files probably won't impact your physical 
> memory footpring.
> > Even so, you only have the translations of your current locale loaded
> > into RAM so by deleting all the others you only save disk space. AFAIK
> > that should be safe to do though.
> >

Ups, sorry, of course I meant .mo files here. Unlocalized application
should be a bit faster for sure, the problem is to keep the balance
between localization and memory/speed. For example I don't need gconf
translations at all.

> This might not be entirely true.  Gconf does now separate locale 
> specific strings into separate backend files.   But fonts for all 
> locales tend to be loaded regardless of your base locale. 
> 
> For example, launching eog in the "C" locale (Solaris Nevada build 82, 
> GNOME 2.20.2)  opens font files for many other locales.  These may be 
> mapped into physical memory at times, regardless of your locale. :
> 
>   4302 eog           18 
> /usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh/X11/fonts/TrueType//fonts.cache-1
>   4302 eog           -1 

[snip]

>   4302 eog           -1 
> /usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh_HK.BIG5HK/X11/fonts/TT//fonts.cache-1
> /usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh.GBK/X11/fonts/75dpi//fonts.cache-1
>   4302 eog           18 
> /usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh.GBK/X11/fonts/TrueType//fonts.cache-1
>   4302 eog           18 
> /usr/openwin/lib/locale/zh/X11/fonts/75dpi//fonts.cache-1
> 
> 
> This might make sense for a browser or email client, but if there is a 
> performance and memory impact, it would be nice to have the option to 
> disable loading of fonts from other locales.  Some GNOME users are 
> running on thin client kiosks on isolated networks (banks...) where they 
> are unlikely to need all of these fonts.

Exactly, it's an important problem I see now. Moreover there is an issue
not with locale fonts only, but with unused fonts as well. I don't
really need Type1 fonts or Bitstream if I don't use them. So it's
generally recommended to select subset of fonts user will use and delete
others since they are searched on startup as strace shows. The same is
true for various plugins, like gedit plugins. You could just remove
unused ones if you need. Otherwise they will be scanned on every
startup.

Though I have a feeling that the biggest memory consumer is somewhere
out there.