[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kmail-devel
Subject:    Re: KMail memory usage
From:       Andreas Gungl <Andreas.Gungl () osp-dd ! de>
Date:       2000-05-02 12:04:49
[Download RAW message or body]

Hi Don,

Don Sanders schrieb:
> 
> I looked into KMail memory usage in the HEAD branch (KMail 1.1.41).
> 
> The bad news is that KMail 1.1.41 consumes about 8452KB of memory whereas
> KMail 1.0.29.1 consumes 3156KB.
> 
> This is measured by rebooting, logging in, starting KDE (HEAD branch for
> 1.1.41, KDE 1.1.2 for KMail 1.0.29.1) and a couple konsoles (or kvts for
> KMail 1.0.29.1), starting top in one and then kmail in the other and watching
> how much free memory decreases by.
> 
> If (under the HEAD branch) I start kdelibs/khtml/testkhtml before KMail then
> the amount of free memory decreases by only ~1500KB.
> 
> (If would be good if some one else could verify these numbers, ideally
> someone with more than 64MB of ram. I'm using an x86 system. Perhaps they
> could try starting up other applications too before starting KMail and give
> details of their finding, qt/examples/widgets and kdelibs/kdeui/kdualcolor
> would be good ones)
> 
> I conclude that KMail in the HEAD branch does use a lot more memory, but
> there is little I as a KMail application developer can do to alleviate this
> since it is the libraries that are consuming the majority of the memory used.
> I haven't determined which libraries exactly yet, I could do this by
> (rebooting then) starting another app before KMail (and repeating).

I think, there are more problems in the libraries than we think about at
the moment. Yesterday I started KDE2 to have a look at kmail. It was
running well. Then I wanted to have a look at konquerer's XML
capability. Selecting a DTD file showed a gray window, then I selected
"Window|Split horiz." in the menu. After that my swap increased from
about 15 MB to more than 90 MB, then the system became very slow. I did
react after minutes for a keystroke. So after typing Ctrl-Alt-Del to get
out of the session I had to wait for about 25 min (K6-II 400, 64 MB RAM,
128 MB swap) until I got back to kdm.
What I want to say is: IMO you can wait to fix memory problems in kmail
untill the libraries are more stable. Perhaps you want to implement MD5
first? ;-)

Andreas

> Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about *nix memory allocation could correct
> any errors I have made, and also remind me as to how to find which libraries
> an application links against.
> 
> BFN,
> Don.

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]