[patch] fix another module loader memory leak

Alan W. Irwin irwin at beluga.phys.uvic.ca
Tue Feb 12 11:56:46 PST 2008


Just out of curiosity could you provide more high-level context for users
concerning these patches?

For example, do any of these memory-leak fixes correspond to the substantial
memory leak for X that consumes something like 1 GB of memory per week? At
least that was the rate of loss of memory that I measured looking at the RES
column for the "top" application for the Xorg process last time I checked
for the Debian unstable version of X (about a month ago since my X has been
up and down quite a bit since).  For example, I restarted X recently and top
shows RES for Xorg at 11MB which is quite reasonable, but if X stays up and
that past "Big" memory leak has not been fixed, then after a week or so that
RES amount will be up to a GB even if I completely simplify my desktop by
killing all browsers, most xterms, etc.

Presumably, that symptom is a result of a memory leak that is in some sort
of loop in X that keeps running for a normal desktop and which therefore
consumes memory at roughly a constant rate.

I don't have enough knowledge of X to know whether any of your fixes
correspond to a leak that would occur constantly for normal desktop use or
whether they correspond to a memory leak that should not occur that often
and which therefore does not have that much practical significance.

IOW, are these minor memory management irritations you are cleaning up 
(which is always good to see) or are your patches going to have large
practical consequences for most X users?

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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