Text rendering memory issues

["Dag Helstad" <dag_helstad hotmail com>]

Hello all!

I'm developing GTK based software for an embedded environment. Now I'm 
thinking of migrating from GTK 1.2 to 2.x for its i18n functionality. It 
works nice, but the problem is memory consumption.

It seems some part of the glib/pango/gdk/gtk hierarchy allocates a large 
chunk of memory (approx 1 MB) when the first piece of text is rendered. For 
instance, on our system, an application with only a main window takes 636 
kB; the same app with a single button+label takes 1620 kb; with two labeled 
buttons it consumes 1624kB.

I've tried snooping around in the code and on the Net, but I can't find 
anything useful. Does anyone know why this much memory is allocated? And if 
I knew where the memory is going, would I have any chance whatsoever to 
reduce the consumption? Is this "just" a matter of memory vs. performance, 
or is it by design?

I'm running the GTK suite on a Linux/XFree86 system. All libraries are built 
in their x11-versions. Pango uses the basic-x module. I have full control of 
all libraries, fonts, applications and configurations on the system, so if 
this problem can be solved by changing something outside the GTK-related 
stuff,  I can do it.

Any clues, a pointer to docs, configuration options, code, whatever, are 
appreciated!

Regards,
Dag

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