Date: Mon, 17 Jul 1995 20:59:01 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: paul@FreeBSD.org Cc: imp@village.org, rsnow@legend.txdirect.net, FreeBSD-current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: XFree86 and swap Message-ID: <199507171129.UAA03075@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <199507171036.LAA24030@server.netcraft.co.uk> from "Paul Richards" at Jul 17, 95 11:36:07 am
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Paul Richards stands accused of saying: > I seem to remember that our malloc was pretty stupid about freeing up memory > but do you mean the X server never gives back the memory it grabs? If so, > what's the reasoning? Good question. I'd hazard a guess that it's probably historical. Think about it a bit though, it's not as simple as it may seem. Consider the speed issue too. (Instant Expert Warning! 8) > When you're running lots of X clients, like netsape and xv then you're > going to use a LOT of memory in one go and if the X server never gives it > back you're in trouble. No; the process can reuse the space, it's just that under our current malloc, the memory is never returned to the system. > Well, netscape seems to be the cause but I'm not sure it's the problem since > I'd expect the memory to be freed when I kill it. The memory that netscape uses will be freed, but the memory used by the X server to manage netscapes requests isn't freed until the X server is killed. > Paul Richards, Bluebird Computer Systems. FreeBSD core team member. If you want something that will _really_ bloat your server, try 'display' from the ImageMagic package 8) -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] My car has "demand start" - Terry Lambert [[
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199507171129.UAA03075>