From owner-freebsd-questions Sat Apr 27 15:01:17 1996 Return-Path: owner-questions Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id PAA11358 for questions-outgoing; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 15:01:17 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (palmer.demon.co.uk [158.152.50.150]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id PAA11353 for ; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 15:01:14 -0700 (PDT) Received: from palmer.demon.co.uk (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by palmer.demon.co.uk (sendmail/PALMER-1) with ESMTP id XAA04980 ; Sat, 27 Apr 1996 23:00:34 +0100 (BST) To: "Mr Sean Batson A.C.P." cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG From: "Gary Palmer" Subject: Re: Free(); In-reply-to: Your message of "Sat, 27 Apr 1996 17:43:16 EDT." <318294F4.41C67EA6@caribnet.net> Date: Sat, 27 Apr 1996 23:00:34 +0100 Message-ID: <4978.830642434@palmer.demon.co.uk> Sender: owner-questions@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk "Mr Sean Batson A.C.P." wrote in message ID <318294F4.41C67EA6@caribnet.net>: > While using the Netscape 3.0 browser i realise the swap space is always > reducing and never increasing. Could it a case of malloc(); malloc(); > and no calls to free();free(); which eats the swap area up? > I this is so, when would there be a correction this problem? Possibly. What version of the X server are you running? Unless it's quite recent (i.e. before XFree86 3.12) you'll be relying on the malloc()/free() in libc, which in 2.1-stable and before had a problem in that it didn't return memory to the system until the process exited. As Netscape does intensive bitmap requests to the server, it tends to do quite a lot of malloc()ing and free()ing, resulting in a creeping memory usage. Depending on BSDI's malloc(), Netscape itself could have the same problem. Partial Solution: either relink your X server to use -lgnumalloc, or upgrade to a later version which is linked with GNU malloc already. Messy Solution: quit X every so often and reload it. The problem is addressed in 2.2 which a new malloc/free (phkmalloc), but since Netscape is statically linked on BSDI's BSD/OS, we depend on them having a non-leaking malloc... (AFAIK) Gary -- Gary Palmer FreeBSD Core Team Member FreeBSD - Turning PC's into workstations. See http://www.FreeBSD.ORG/ for info.