Major application resource leaks in Etch
While copying 30MB of text from a backuppc (web-based) log on a remote server, I
ran into several problems:
1) Selecting the text using the Iceape edit->select-all menu option pegs the
2.8GB CPU at 100% for tens of seconds, although it is much faster in subsequent
attempts.
2) Each repetition causes two 60MB clipboard cache files to appear in /tmp.
They persist after logging out of Gnome.
2) Pasting the text into kedit, or cutting it, pegs the CPU from 10s of seconds
to a few minutes, and virtual memory usage approaches 2GB, increasing each time
I repeat the operation. (I stop before 2G only to avoid swapping. I have no
evidence that the leak is bounded.)
Since I am aware of the clipboard files I probably could probably safely delete
them, but most users would be forced to reboot when their system mysteriously
becomes unresponsive.
It doesn't appear to be Etch-specific. I duplicated the problem in Sarge using
Firefox, but the symptoms differed: the CPU usage delays were greater, but only
one clipboard file was produced after each text selection, and this was
reflected in 50% less virtual memory leakage.
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