Re: GDM, GNOME and RAM issue

[Catonano <catonano@gmail.com>]

Il giorno mer 18 mar 2020 alle ore 15:43 sirgazil <sirgazil@zoho.com> ha
scritto:

>  ---- On Mon, 24 Feb 2020 12:19:37 -0500 sirgazil <sirgazil@zoho.com>
> wrote ----
>  > Hello,
>  >
>  > I've been experiencing the following behavior for months, but didn't
> have the time to report anything.
>  >
>  > When I boot, a fresh GNOME session uses around 1.3 GiB (I don't know if
> this is normal).
>  >
>  > After several hours of work, the desktop starts feeling somewhat slow
> (e.g. when launching apps, switching work spaces). When this happens, RAM
> usage is around 3 GiB (of 4 GiB in total). If I continue working, RAM usage
> continues to go up little by little, and I have to reboot at some point,
> because memory is not released and things become slower.
>  >
>  > When RAM usage is very high, closing all applications reduces usage to
> 2 GiB approx. (which I think is too high). If I log out and then log back
> in, those 2 GiB are still in use (which I think is odd).
>  >
>  > Here are some screenshots of resource usage reported by the "top"
> program. GDM looks suspicious:
>  >
>  > • RAM usage after several hours of work with the applications I use
> every day still running:
>  >
>  >
> https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/gnome-session-after-hours-of-work-all-apps-2020-02-23.png
>  >
>  > • RAM usage after closing all applications:
>  >
>  >
> https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/gnome-session-after-hours-of-work-all-apps-closed-2020-02-23.png
>  >
>  > • RAM usage after logging out and then login back in:
>  >
>  >
> https://multimedialib.files.wordpress.com/2020/02/gnome-session-after-hours-of-work-re-log-in-2020-02-23.png
>  >
>  >
>  > I decided to try sway to see if I had the same problem there, but I
> think it is something related to GDM+GNOME. In sway, a fresh session uses
> around 700 MiB; after hours of work (using the same applications I use
> every day), RAM usage stays between 2 and 2.5 GiB; and when I exit all
> applications, RAM seems to be released ok (descends to 900 MiB approx.).
>  >
>
> I just reported this problem to the issue tracker:
> http://issues.guix.gnu.org/issue/40116
>
>

I remember that the Gnome people fixed a memory leak some months ago

It had to do with a glitch in the layout of pointers to instances in the
Gnome object system that made it difficult for the garbage collector to
reach exhausted references

Now I don't remember when this was and what version of Gnome was involved,
I'm being a bit vague, I know

But if the version of Gnome in Guix is not recent, there's a good chance
that you're running into that bug.