Re: Memory Issues

[Telsa Gwynne <hobbit aloss ukuu org uk>]

On Wed, Dec 20, 2000 at 11:15:53AM -0500 or thereabouts, Oleg wrote:
> That means that  Don and I are doing the same things wrong.  Maybe someone
> has some suggestions.  I'm running RH 6.2 with Enlightenment (I tried

Suggestions on things you might try to lighten Gnome are at 
http://www.gnome.org/faqs/users-faq/using.html#AEN708 (currently, 
although I think the numbers after the # may get regenerated when
the faq gets updated. /using.html will work.) You can probably
skip the bit about different window managers, though. 

You'll also find a link to the Memory Usage document directly
after that, which can help when deciphering ps and top results.
I -hope- that the help for gtop helps, too. In particular, two
things to note are how to discount the amount of shared libraries
when totalling up what is using how much; and that mozilla uses
threads which each get PID numbers of their own. 

> Sawfish and had the same problems).  Additionally, if I leave a Netscape
> window (mozilla or 4.08) running for more than 5 minutes without editing
> it, it freezes completely.

I found Netscape and Mozilla would grow if I left them open without
using them, particularly on pages with animated gifs or which got
updated periodically. I open 'em, use 'em, close 'em again, and they
work here. This machine now has 128 megs, but I was doing that on 64
megs happily. (I also tend to turn off a lot of the bells and whistles
in both browsers). They are both notorious culprits for being big,
crashy, and memory-hungry. From my experience of nightlies, the 
Mozilla people are certainly working to improve this.  

> Don't even get me started on xmms.  Whenever I run xmms I have to shut
> down my X server after two songs because everything gets totally locked
> up.

Hmm. Does the same happen if you try to play things with mpg123? (Just
picking a command-line program in the hope of narrowing it down.) Or
a specifically Gnome mpg player? 

I'll note that Netscape, Mozilla, and to the best of my knowledge xmms
are none of them Gnome programs. But they do seem to be used by a lot
of Gnome users. 

Telsa