Re: Etch Xorg memory leak?
On Sun, May 13, 2007 at 07:51:18AM -0400, Douglas Allan Tutty wrote:
>
> Over time, xorg takes up more and more memory. On my i386, I only have
> 64 MB of ram so I can only run X for about 45 minutes before the system
> thrashes. Eventually, Xorg dies but doesn't release the screen. If I
> let the system sit for about 60 minutes, the thrashing subsides and I
> can ssh in and reboot to get my screen back. Hard on the disk, but the
> i386 is only a client box.
>
> On my amd64 Athlon64, I have 1 GB of ram so can run xorg; I haven't left
> this computer run long enough to run out of memory and thrash since its
> my main box; it gets turned off at night and through the day acts as a
> server. In the evening if I want to access the big screen, I'll run X
> for a couple of hours.
>
> This happens irrespective of window manager or DTE; on the i386 icewm
> takes up less memory so Xorg will run longer before thrashing than if
> I'm running xfce. It also happens if I don't use a wm at all and just
> run rxvt.
>
> Is anyone else seeing this? Is it fixed in Lenny/Sid? Any plans to fix
> it for Etch?
Update:
Tried the vesa xorg driver. No difference except that after I exit X
back to CLI, my console colours are messed up; I guess the vesa driver
didn't restore the hardware; I'll try a reboot.
I also made some progress that may help with reproducability:
startx
rxvt and run nice top. shrink so just watch the header info e.g. swap
used
ssh titan -f /usr/bin/kpdf
open a long file
view each page in turn
As each new page is viewed, xorg uses more memory, and swap goes up.
Its as if xorg is using memory to hold the image for the new page and
isn't releasing the memory used to hold the old page. I conjuecture
that its holding all viewed pages in memory.
Doug.
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