memory leak, please help !!!!

[lad24mx]

I have a system with 256mb of Ram, I was surprised to find out that by running Netscape 4.75 memory usage increased from 10% to somenthing like 40%, un fortunately shtting down Netscape did not free up my memory.
Running StarOffice was even worst. Memory usage increased to 83% while running star office (50mb of free meory remained down from the 256 that are in my system).

Is there a way for me to controll or avoid this from happening?

Your help is greatly appreciated.

Robert

[Jeepsta]

Correct me if I am wrong but doesnt Linux cache files in memory so that access is faster and then writes them to the hard disk when you shutdown?? I believe that this is what is happening but I could be wrong. As for a command that will clear memory, that I dont know but would be interested to find out if there is one.

Hope this helps a little.

Zach

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Its a jeep thing... You wouldn't understand.

[Derango]

This is normal in linux. What linux does is if you use a file, it does not remove it from your system memory right away, in case you need to use it again. This allows the second loading of the file to be much faster than the first. When you start a program that needs to use more ram than is availible, it moves all that cached information from the system RAM to the hard drive freeing up your memory.

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This space For Rent

[Jeepsta]

Is there a way to clear the ram without rebooting?? Like a command that would clear it out. Any Ideas?

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Its a jeep thing... You wouldn't understand.

[Strike]

Why would you want to flush it out? I mean, memory that is being used for just cache is just as good as memory with nothing in it. In fact, it's better in case you NEED the stuff in that cache. Why waste the time paging that memory out when you may need it again?

[Derango]

If you wanted to flush the memory, you can type "sync" without the quotes.

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This space For Rent

[posterboy]

I think "sync" is useful to flush the unwritten disk buffers, but will have no effect on the disk cacheing being discussed. There is no command, that I know of, to cause this, because there is no reason to do it. This disk cacheing is released back into the free pool as you ask for it, by starting apps. etc. All automagic, and all designed for maximum efficient use of the ram available. This box normally runs about 90, 95% used memory.
Ray


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ray@raymondjones.net
HTTP://www.raymondjones.net

[Derango]

hmm..thanks for correcting me. I tried http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif

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This space For Rent

[ph34r]

What? You spent $$ on 256mb of ram, and you don't want your system to use it all?

As long as you aren't using any swap to speak of, you are doing fine.

[MkIII_Supra]

If you want to "free" up some RAM open a really large .jpg then close it. Sounds funny but it works! Thing I am curious about is how many processes are you running?

In this link I am playing CivCTP and have a total of 78 processes runing. Take a look at how much RAM is free....
This is normal... (http://www.geocities.com/mkiii_supra2/ScreenShots/another_flextest.jpg)

In this screen shot I have 86 processes running: MP2, StarOffice 5.2, AC3D, K-Mail, Compupic and a few others as you can see by Gkrellm I am using about 80% of my available RAM and still have not touched my swap! Now when I close these processes my RAM usage dropped to 46MB. That is about where my system will run normally is 46 - 58MB usage of 196mb available. These load slow! (http://www.geocities.com/mkiii_supra2/ScreenShots/System_FlexOut1.jpg)

Be warned these 2 images are 1024x764 and they load slow on a phone modem! I am at grannies place on her AOL account!

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Not much to say? Then shut the hell up!
http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra/ (http://www.angelfire.com/wa2/MkIIISupra)

[lad24mx]

Thank you all for your help.

Yes I dished out $$ for 256mb of ram. I don't have a problem with it being used up by the different apps. It just seemed unusual that by running one or two apps memory usage will increase to such an extent.

I mean, I'm not running windows here for crying out loud.