Very Computer

by **Eric J. Whitne** » Thu, 27 Jun 2002 13:46:41

Hi everybody!

Can anyone explain why X-Windows is using 133M of RAM, even with nothing
open or running, excluding one terminal window? Are there ways to
shrink it down? I only discovered this after I hit the machine with a
rather large scientific application and it balked much earlier than
I thought it would.

The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8100 notebook with a 1 Ghz PIII processor
and 256M Ram. The video card is a GeForce 2 with 32M ram. The
operating system is vanilla RedHat 7.1 using GNOME. External mouse is
USB.

Anyone solved this problem before?

Any help appreciated!

Eric

by **Christopher Brown** » Thu, 27 Jun 2002 21:48:56

Quote:> Can anyone explain why X-Windows is using 133M of RAM, even with nothing
> open or running, excluding one terminal window? Are there ways to
> shrink it down? I only discovered this after I hit the machine with a
> rather large scientific application and it balked much earlier than
> I thought it would.

> The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8100 notebook with a 1 Ghz PIII processor
> and 256M Ram. The video card is a GeForce 2 with 32M ram. The
> operating system is vanilla RedHat 7.1 using GNOME. External mouse is
> USB.

> Anyone solved this problem before?

How do you _know_ it's consuming 133MB of RAM?

Because the (lying) ps/top commands say so?

If I were to actually _believe_ my system, I'd think that X was
consuming some 702MB of RAM on a system that only has 640MB.

The most notable thing taking place is that your graphics card RAM is
included multiple times, which would frankly account for almost all of
the memory you're reporting is in use.
--

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by **The.Central.Scrutinizer.nos..** » Sat, 29 Jun 2002 01:48:20

>> Can anyone explain why X-Windows is using 133M of RAM, even with nothing
>> open or running, excluding one terminal window? Are there ways to
>> shrink it down? I only discovered this after I hit the machine with a
>> rather large scientific application and it balked much earlier than
>> I thought it would.

>> The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8100 notebook with a 1 Ghz PIII processor
>> and 256M Ram. The video card is a GeForce 2 with 32M ram. The
>> operating system is vanilla RedHat 7.1 using GNOME. External mouse is
>> USB.

>> Anyone solved this problem before?

>How do you _know_ it's consuming 133MB of RAM?

>Because the (lying) ps/top commands say so?

>If I were to actually _believe_ my system, I'd think that X was
>consuming some 702MB of RAM on a system that only has 640MB.

You need to learn the difference between virtual and physical memory.

by **Jon Trulso** » Wed, 03 Jul 2002 05:24:18

>>>> Can anyone explain why X-Windows is using 133M of RAM, even with nothing
>>>> open or running, excluding one terminal window? Are there ways to
>>>> shrink it down? I only discovered this after I hit the machine with a
>>>> rather large scientific application and it balked much earlier than
>>>> I thought it would.

>>>> The machine is a Dell Inspiron 8100 notebook with a 1 Ghz PIII processor
>>>> and 256M Ram. The video card is a GeForce 2 with 32M ram. The
>>>> operating system is vanilla RedHat 7.1 using GNOME. External mouse is
>>>> USB.

>>>> Anyone solved this problem before?

>>>How do you _know_ it's consuming 133MB of RAM?

>>>Because the (lying) ps/top commands say so?

>>>If I were to actually _believe_ my system, I'd think that X was
>>>consuming some 702MB of RAM on a system that only has 640MB.

>> You need to learn the difference between virtual and physical memory.
> I _know_ the difference between virtual and physical memory. And the
> system wasn't swapping, so that wasn't the issue.

The 'problem' is that top/ps/et. al. are showing you all memory
mapped by the process. This include the standard stuff like text/data,
but with an X server, also includes device mappings - like a mmap'd
framebuffer, MMIO region, AGP memory, etc....

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