[opensuse] Re: My Laptop is running out of memory few minutes after boot

Hello, I have hp Pavilion dv6-2165tx laptop, 500GiB, 3GiB of RAM, dedicated nvidia GeForce(with CUDA) and Core i5 processor L3 cache, etc. I installed opensuse 11.4 and running KDE 4.6 in my laptop, but every time I boot it after some few minutes everything the system used to hang, I try to find out the problem only to find out that there was no memory at all left even before starting any intense applications like virtual box, etc. I had only 50,000K. After some days i came to realize that KMix was eating memory everytime I boot my system (slowly but after sometime it may have more than 1GiB of memory), I also find out that tracker-..... (I really don't remember the last name as there are several processes wich starts with tracker that eat my memory too) also do like KMix, and they eat around 700MiB accelerating from just 100K. What i always do is just to kill all these processes and am left with no control over my laptop sound (only to use alsa to control manually using cursor after lunching the application) Eventhough am able to kill all those processes, memory remain is still less than 500MiB and it keeps being eaten to few KiBs. I would like someone there to help me to fix all these problems. Thanks, -- Jonathan Seni. There are 10 kinds of people in this world, Those who knows numbers, and Those who wait for the other 8 people to be listed ---------------------------------------------------- SimplyMepis, SuSE 9.2, openSuSE 10.2 /10.3/11.0/11.1/11.2 /11.3/11.4(x86-64). -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 19 May 2011 21:01:30 +0530, Jonius <cjonius@gmail.com> wrote:
i've had a similar problem with kmix some time ago, that it was using 100% CPU resources, not memory in my case. after closing kmix try to delete or rename ~/.kde4/share/apps/kmix/ and ~/.kde4/share/config/kmixctrlrc & ~/.kde4/share/config/kmixrc. that helped in my case. upon restart kmix will recreate these dir.s & files, and hopefully behave better.
if you're using pulseaudio, there's another useful application, pavucontrol, which allows better adjustment of pulseaudio settings. i think it isn't installed by default, but available from KDE repos. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 May 2011 16:31:30 Jonius wrote:
Hi . I was having exactly the same problem last night on my Compaq Presario v5030 laptop AMD turion 1.5Gb ram 100 Gb Hdd ATI radeon mobility graphics was fine for a while then stopped dead , This only started happening after the latest zypper up fortunately i still have the drive with 11.3 on it that works perfectly . Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.8-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 16:46 up 2 days 16:41, 5 users, load average: 0.06, 0.17, 0.14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Jonius <cjonius@gmail.com> wrote:
Where are you reading these stats from? top will show several different things. Just because it show very little free memory doesn't mean that's the case(buffers and disk caching are included in the totals). What's the amount of the swap file being used? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 5/19/2011 8:51 AM, Larry Stotler wrote:
This was going to be my question too, but Larry beat me to it. Almost any time people report "low memory" its because they are applying windows knowledge to linux. In the linux world, any memory not used is considered wasted, and will be put to use for file caching and backgrounding tasks. Unless your swap is being heavily used, just stop fretting about memory, and find out what processes are using up your CPU cycles. Just let Linux handle the memory and don't even look there. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 May 2011 17:32:35 John Andersen wrote:
yes good point had forgotten about that bit but the machine just get so slow it all but stops , closing an xterm topk 23 mins last night no disk activity so it was not an indexing issue . I suspect it is an issue with the kernel update but have not got the laptop setup for multiple kernels so i will have to reinstall from the dvd to try it out Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.8-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 18:00 up 2 days 17:55, 5 users, load average: 0.14, 0.22, 0.16 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John Andersen said the following on 05/19/2011 12:32 PM:
Indeed. There are a few applets that will show memory/cpu/swap use If your memory (in-use + buffers + cache) isn't up in the >90% then something is wrong! Yes, perhaps only 60% (at some particular snapshot time) is being used by the programs' working set, but so what? I *do* have just such an applet in place and see the swap use creep up over time when I'm using firefox. I think it has a memory leak. I shut down firefox and the swap drop back to close to zero. I can do a swapoff/swapon to clear it. Yes, my laptop freezes occasionally now I'm running 11.4. Sometimes I can't even ssh in. Sometimes I can ssh in but the shell is unresponsive. Sometimes - not often - it works and I can init-3/init-5. I have to do that because the double-ctl-alt-backspace does not unfreeze the machine. More often that not such freezes require a hard reset. -- It is the first step of wisdom to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the society in which they occur. --Alfred North Whitehead -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* Anton Aylward <opensuse@antonaylward.com> [05-19-11 14:15]:
Indeed. There are a few applets that will show memory/cpu/swap use
And "ksysguard" happens to be one that is handy, expecially for kde systems, and easy to get to: Default key: <ctrl><esc> -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Fri, 20 May 2011 02:35:56 +0530, Patrick Shanahan <paka@opensuse.org> wrote:
i like to have around the "system load viewer," an applet that's available with standard KDE4 intalls. it shows system use in form of a simple colored bar chart. you can't see exactly what uses how much, but when something runs off with CPU or memory, it looks different. then you can click on it, which has the same effect as <ctrl><esc>, i.e., ksysguard opens. for more detailed tracking of resources it's probably better to also consult top or htop (terminal). on occasion i find that processes that aren't shown in ksysguard do show up in (h)top. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

* phanisvara das <listmail@phanisvara.com> [05-20-11 00:32]:
ksysguard probably gives you all you want, see: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/~pat/ksysguard.png <rt-click> on any item offers "Detail Memory Information" as below: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/~pat/ksysguard.memory.png -- (paka)Patrick Shanahan Plainfield, Indiana, USA HOG # US1244711 http://wahoo.no-ip.org Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2 http://en.opensuse.org openSUSE Community Member Registered Linux User #207535 @ http://counter.li.org -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 May 2011 17:31:30 Jonius wrote:
I have hp Pavilion dv6-2165tx laptop, 500GiB, 3GiB of RAM, dedicated nvidia GeForce(with CUDA) and Core i5 processor L3 cache, etc.
If you're using the nouveau driver and notice that Xorg is using a lot of memory, nouveau leaks - you can workaround by using the nvidia driver instead. Will -- Will Stephenson, KDE Developer, openSUSE Boosters Team SUSE LINUX GmbH, GF: Jeff Hawn, Jennifer Guild, Felix Imendörffer, HRB 21284 (AG Nürnberg) Maxfeldstraße 5 90409 Nürnberg Germany -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, 19 May 2011 21:01:30 +0530, Jonius <cjonius@gmail.com> wrote:
i've had a similar problem with kmix some time ago, that it was using 100% CPU resources, not memory in my case. after closing kmix try to delete or rename ~/.kde4/share/apps/kmix/ and ~/.kde4/share/config/kmixctrlrc & ~/.kde4/share/config/kmixrc. that helped in my case. upon restart kmix will recreate these dir.s & files, and hopefully behave better.
if you're using pulseaudio, there's another useful application, pavucontrol, which allows better adjustment of pulseaudio settings. i think it isn't installed by default, but available from KDE repos. -- phani. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 May 2011 16:31:30 Jonius wrote:
Hi . I was having exactly the same problem last night on my Compaq Presario v5030 laptop AMD turion 1.5Gb ram 100 Gb Hdd ATI radeon mobility graphics was fine for a while then stopped dead , This only started happening after the latest zypper up fortunately i still have the drive with 11.3 on it that works perfectly . Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.8-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 16:46 up 2 days 16:41, 5 users, load average: 0.06, 0.17, 0.14 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 11:31 AM, Jonius <cjonius@gmail.com> wrote:
Where are you reading these stats from? top will show several different things. Just because it show very little free memory doesn't mean that's the case(buffers and disk caching are included in the totals). What's the amount of the swap file being used? -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On 5/19/2011 8:51 AM, Larry Stotler wrote:
This was going to be my question too, but Larry beat me to it. Almost any time people report "low memory" its because they are applying windows knowledge to linux. In the linux world, any memory not used is considered wasted, and will be put to use for file caching and backgrounding tasks. Unless your swap is being heavily used, just stop fretting about memory, and find out what processes are using up your CPU cycles. Just let Linux handle the memory and don't even look there. -- _____________________________________ ---This space for rent--- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

On Thursday 19 May 2011 17:32:35 John Andersen wrote:
yes good point had forgotten about that bit but the machine just get so slow it all but stops , closing an xterm topk 23 mins last night no disk activity so it was not an indexing issue . I suspect it is an issue with the kernel update but have not got the laptop setup for multiple kernels so i will have to reinstall from the dvd to try it out Pete . -- Powered by openSUSE 11.3 (x86_64) Kernel: 2.6.34.8-0.2-desktop KDE Development Platform: 4.6.00 (4.6.0) 18:00 up 2 days 17:55, 5 users, load average: 0.14, 0.22, 0.16 -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

John Andersen said the following on 05/19/2011 12:32 PM:
Indeed. There are a few applets that will show memory/cpu/swap use If your memory (in-use + buffers + cache) isn't up in the >90% then something is wrong! Yes, perhaps only 60% (at some particular snapshot time) is being used by the programs' working set, but so what? I *do* have just such an applet in place and see the swap use creep up over time when I'm using firefox. I think it has a memory leak. I shut down firefox and the swap drop back to close to zero. I can do a swapoff/swapon to clear it. Yes, my laptop freezes occasionally now I'm running 11.4. Sometimes I can't even ssh in. Sometimes I can ssh in but the shell is unresponsive. Sometimes - not often - it works and I can init-3/init-5. I have to do that because the double-ctl-alt-backspace does not unfreeze the machine. More often that not such freezes require a hard reset. -- It is the first step of wisdom to recognize that the major advances in civilization are processes which all but wreck the society in which they occur. --Alfred North Whitehead -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org
participants (8)
-
Anton Aylward
-
John Andersen
-
Jonius
-
Larry Stotler
-
Patrick Shanahan
-
Peter Nikolic
-
phanisvara das
-
Will Stephenson