[comp.windows.x] Memory management in OpenWindows vs. X11R4

cdm@bigdaddy.UUCP (Clifford D. Morrison) (04/03/91)

If I run an XView program of ours on the X11R4 server on a Sparc IPC, the 
server grows by 7 meg!  When the application is quit, the memory is NOT
given up.  There is an increase on a monochrome server as well, but it is
not as substantial (about 1/8th as much).

It is not a leak, because I can run the application again and it doesn't
take any additonal memory.  However, you can imagine that running a couple of
these applications at a time will quickly eat up swap space and degrade
performance on an IPC.

If I run the same scenario on the OpenWindows 2.0 server on the IPC,
the extra server memory is freed when the application quits.

Strangely, I am told by coworkers that running the same scenario on a binary-
compatible color Solbourne with the same x11r4 server and application 
does not permanently consume server memory.

Anyone familiar with this care to comment?  Is there a way to get the 
standard X server to "garbage-collect."  If not, should I report this as
a bug?  Could this possibly be an operating system problem?  What does 
OpenWindows do differently?

<Cliff>

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Clifford D. Morrison                |  Work Phone:  (214) 661-6297         |
|  Electronic Data Systems Corporation |                                      |
|  7171 Forest Lane                    |  UUNET:  !uunet!edsr!cdm             |
|  MS C210                             |  GEnie:  C.D.MORRISON                |
|  Dallas, TX  75081                   |                                      |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|  Disclaimer:                                                                |
|               My views do not necessarily (or usually) represent            |
|                 the views of my employer or anyone but myself.              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

dan@watson.ibm.COM (Walt Daniels) (04/04/91)

Only guessing, but a never decreasing sbrk is a signature of the BSD
fastfree version of malloc.

cdm@edsr.eds.com (Clifford David Morrison) (05/10/91)

I posted this to the xpert mailing list a while back, but didn't figure out
the problem.  I'm putting this on comp.windows.x in hopes of finding a wider
audience.

If I run an XView program of ours on the X11R4 server on a Sparc IPC, the 
server grows by 7 meg!  When the application is quit, the memory is NOT
given up.  There is an increase on a monochrome server as well, but it is
not as substantial (about 1/8th as much).

It is not a leak, because I can run the application again and it doesn't
take any additonal memory.  However, you can imagine that running a couple of
these applications at a time will quickly eat up swap space and degrade
performance on an IPC.

If I run the same scenario on the OpenWindows 2.0 server on the IPC,
the extra server memory is freed when the application quits.

Strangely, I am told by coworkers that running the same scenario on a binary-
compatible color Solbourne with the same x11r4 server and application 
does not permanently consume server memory.

Anyone familiar with this care to comment?  Is there a way to get the 
standard X server to "garbage-collect."  If not, should I report this as
a bug?  Could this possibly be an operating system problem?  What does 
OpenWindows do differently?

<Cliff>

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Clifford D. Morrison                |  Work Phone:  (214) 661-6297         |
|  Electronic Data Systems Corporation |                                      |
|  7171 Forest Lane                    |  UUNET:  !uunet!edsr!cdm             |
|  MS C210                             |  GEnie:  C.D.MORRISON                |
|  Dallas, TX  75081                   |                                      |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|  Disclaimer:                                                                |
|               My views do not necessarily (or usually) represent            |
|                 the views of my employer or anyone but myself.              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+

cdm@edsr.eds.com (Clifford David Morrison) (05/18/91)

A week or so ago I noted that our X server on a Sparc IPC was growing in size 
and not freeing memory.

>If I run an XView program of ours on the X11R4 server on a Sparc IPC, the 
>server grows by 7 meg!  When the application is quit, the memory is NOT
>given up.  There is an increase on a monochrome server as well, but it is
>not as substantial (about 1/8th as much).

Turns out that the MIT patches I applied a year ago were NOT 
successfully installed.

I built a new X server with all 18 patches and the problems I reported 
vanished along with a number of other cursor and display troubles.
If you're running on an IPC, make absolutely sure you're at least at patch 7, 
but preferably at patch 18!!!

<Cliff>

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
|  Clifford D. Morrison                |  Work Phone:  (214) 661-6297         |
|  Electronic Data Systems Corporation |                                      |
|  7171 Forest Lane                    |  UUNET:  !uunet!edsr!sanfelipe!cdm   |
|  MS C210                             |                                      |
|  Dallas, TX  75081                   |                                      |
+--------------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
|  Disclaimer:                                                                |
|               My views do not necessarily (or usually) represent            |
|                 the views of my employer or anyone but myself.              |
+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+