Bug#286803: kernel-source-2.6.9: Kind of a memory leak in kernel 2.6?

[Thiemo Seufer <ica2_ts@csv.ica.uni-stuttgart.de>]

MySQL Development wrote:
[snip]
> The problem is that this did not work out. Every time when I run a make on a
> MySQL source tree, I "loose" some of my memory. More specifically spoken, the
> amount of memory, called "Active" increases, while "Cached" decreases (names
> are taken from /proc/meminfo). Just to avoid misunderstandings: "Active" does
> not fall back to what it was before the the make process started. After
> running MySQL makes a couple of times, "Active" occupies about 80 to 90% of
> the RAM. After that, it does not grow any more. Nevertheless, only a small
> fraction of my expensive RAM is left for the file system cache. 

Have you tried to adjust /proc/sys/vm/vfs_cache_pressure ?
linux/Documentation/filesystems/proc.txt might be worth a read.


Thiemo