Re: gmc goes insane

[Pavel Roskin <proski gnu org>]

Hi, Cliff!

> When gmc (mc 4.5.51 or 4.5.55) runs , it uses all my CPU, grabs all my
> memory ( all 512 MB + swap ) , and ends up pretty much making the
> desktop unusable, requiring me to <ctl><alt><backspace> to kill X.
>
> I also get the "no response from the saveyourself program" message.

It looks like that you are logging into a GNOME session.  In this case
many programs start simultaneously, so it's very hard to say which program
goes insane.

> Needles to say, Gnome is pretty broken without gmc, but I had to remove
> it make it work at all.

That's interesting.  But what happens if you start "gmc" from "xterm"?
Also try "plain-gmc" - it's like gmc, but without CORBA support.

> My system is rh7.1 / Gnome 1.2 except for 3 unusual things which are
> probably be related to this:
>
> First, I am using XIG Accelerated X 1.1 instead of XFree86. Second I am
> using the xfs filesystem. Third, I am using devfs.
>
> Things were working fine before when I was using rh6.2, ext2, and no
> devfs - but still XIG.

Most likely it's XIG plus some GNOME (or image) library that was updated
between RH 6.2 and RH 7.1.  But I'm guessing.

First of all, try replacing XIG with XFree86.

It would be interesing to run gmc and XIG in the debugger just to make
sure that they are not getting some signals, like SIGSEGV and ignoring
them.

Also strace could give us a clue.  Look for brk() calls.  The first brk(0)
returns the initial data segment boundary.  The subsequent calls show how
it changes.  You don't need sources to find out which program runs out of
memory - the one that requests too much memory with brk().

> Please help me fix this.

It looks like a hard problems, so let's collect more information first.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin