On 5/29/06, Michael Malik <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have installed SL 4.3 x86_64 on several different systems and I have
> noticed that the memory being used keeps growing each day.  I looked at
> the system monitor applet in gnome (double-clicked the memory monitor)
> and noticed that there are a large number of programs taking up about
> the same amount of memory (today this is around 135 MB each -- python
> tops the list at 203 MB usage, followed by nautilus at 173 MB, and then
> gnome-terminal at 166 MB, then the rest at about 135 MB).  Looking at
> usage in "top" I see the same thing.  This memory usage is having a
> serious impact on system performance and the only cure we have at the
> moment is to reboot every day.
>
> The hardware we are using is: AMD Athlon 64 3200+, nVidia 6600 PCIE,
> Seagate 250 MB 7200.8, MSI K8N Neo4 f, 1 GB DDR PC3200 Corsair ValueSelect.
>

I have not seen any sort of memory problems with upstream 4.3. I think
that the following would need to be done.. what is exactly running on
the system. Programs taking up the same memory size can be from forks.
Gnome terminal will grow depending on the fonts being used and the
size of the scroll back buffer and the number of windows/tabs being
used.

My list of other checks would be:
  find out what is installed on the system that is outside of Scientific Linux
  find out the integrity of the RPM database (rpm -Va and look for non
config files being changed) [just in case the box has an unwelcome
visitor]
  find out if a new user without any configuration changes has these
issues. The user related issues I have seen have been where someone
turned on all the bells and whistles in Gnome configuration and didnt
realize the effects it might have (oooh I want UTF-32 fonts, 1,000,000
line scrollback, and 10 tabs in gnome-terminal).


> So my question is: does anyone know if this is a memory leak or some
> kind of bug in gnome, the kernel, or perhaps something else?  Thanks!
>


-- 
Stephen J Smoogen.
CSIRT/Linux System Administrator