Re: some thoughts..

["Michael K. Johnson" <johnsonm redhat com>]

Timo Sirainen writes:
>But what if part of program is running? Is Linux really that intelligent
>that it keeps only the necessary code in memory?

Yes, it really is that intelligent.

But not only that, it is ALSO so intelligent that it only loads into
memory the pieces that are used -- unused pieces are never loaded into
memory in the first place.

Also, unmodified bits of program code are never swapped out to swap, they
are just dropped from memory and reloaded from disk again if needed.  So
you don't even have to worry about swap being overused.

Furthermore, you shouldn't have to worry about gmc growing uncontrollably;
remember it is a port of a mature application, so there does not exist a
huge raft of features just waiting to bloat the application.  For what it
does, 800K is remarkably lean.

Look at it this way: divide 800K by the current feature set; the memory
use per feature is very low.  Even with more features to add, at a low
average memory use per feature, it's not likely to bloat into the many
MB range.

Does that help allay your fears?

michaelkjohnson

"Magazines all too frequently lead to books and should be regarded by the
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 Linux Application Development       http://www.redhat.com/~johnsonm/lad/