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[PLUG] Re: PLUG digest, Vol 1 #754 - 13 msgs
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On Thu, Dec 14, 2000 at 11:46:59PM +0500, Rupert Heesom wrote:
>
> If I'm using Helix Gnome, is this version of Gnome past beta? It may just be
> that it's not as stable yet as the Helix folks hope for.
Yes, it is past beta. I mentioned the pager issue only because if
sounded like you were coming straight from the RH6.2 CD and an
upgrade would be worth the time. Other than that one problem, the
helix stuff hasn't given me any trouble - but then I probably don't
use most of the desktop features it provides.
>
> Talking about memory, I've been using the Gnome System Monitor to check mem
> usage off and on. I've noticed that 2 apps in particular use way too much mem:
> Netscape 6 (which I don't run much anymore) and S Office 5.2. They seem to
> load up into between 100-200Mb RAM to begin with.
Those numbers can be a little misleading. Apps like Star Office and Netscape 6
(as well as mozilla and users of gecko) fork into separate threads,
but continue to work together using large pools of shared memory.
Tools like top and gtop (Gnome System Monitor) report each thread and
the total memory that the thread is using. As a result, those shared pools
get reported several times. That doesn't mean that they aren't
memory hogs, it just isn't as bad as it looks.
>
>
> >
> > >
> > > I expect LInux to be able to handle a heavy app load, and keep going
> > > indefinitely without having to reboot.....is this an unrealistic
> > > expectation?
> >
> > No, it is not unrealistic. The problem is likely one process that is
> > doing "Bad Things". It could be a memory leak, it could be lost file
> > pointers, it could be any number of things. I would suggest two
> > things to help diagnose your problem.
> > 1) Read and apply the updates suggested on the RH website for 6.2
> > These would be the gotchas, workarounds, security issues and bug fixes
> > listed on http://www.redhat.com/support/docs/rhl62.html
> > 2) Learn some of the system diagnostic tools available. Some of these
> > can be added to your pager to watch memory and swap usage - useful to
> > determine if memory is leaking. Also good is the command line util
> > top. It displays mem usage, processor usage and a bunch of other good
> > stuff. Use it to get periodic snapshots of the state of your running
> > machine and see what is causing your system degradation.
>
> I've looked at the Redhat site you mentioned here; there does seem to be a few
> packages via their errata page which I should download and install....
>
> When talking to others, they have suggested that X or Gnome is at fault.
> I have found on a few occasions that if I restart X using <Cntl><Alt><Backspace>
> the problem is resolved, and the new X / Gnome session is OK. Rarely do I need
> to restart the entire machine, except when X just won't respond...Hard reboot.
>
> I know I'm not running the latest XFree86...I think RH6.2 uses 3.0.x. Since
> XFree86 4 is out, is is worth my installing that? Does it have any better
> features than just more video driver support?
>
> Also, you mention looking for memory leaks....how would I recognise a leak?
> If I see progs taking up more RAM, I usually assume that the app has just
> requested more RAM....is this an incorrect assumption? As I mentioned above,
> I've already seen some strange app behaviour in RAM on my PC.
Not an incorrect assumption, but there is a difference between a process
making a regular request and a process that keeps getting larger and
larger. Unfortunatly, no one can give you hard and fast rules for
what the difference is, you have to learn what looks right, what feels
right. I keep mentioning memory leaks because certain tools make
them easy to look for (fixing them is a whole other problem). Save
the output of top or gtop somehow (hit 'q' or click the clock icon),
check back in a few hours to see what has changed. It would help if
you didn't work on the system during this time - just let the bad
thing happen on its own.
>
> I sometimes wonder whether my install of RH is the problem.....I got the install
> from a book on Linux: Osborne's The Complete Reference to Redhat Linux. The
> CD did state what the publisher left off the CD...just stuff like international
> and non-English support....actually, looking at the CD again, there much more
> stuff than I remembered left off, I may go and install a few more things, like
> optimised support for i686.
Uninformed opinion : I doubt that a simple reinstall would do the
trick, but anytime you add or upgrade something, your problem could
just disappear.
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