Does swap work correctly on MEPIS 6.0?

I don't have problems, it might be that the program is leaking memory and those kind of programs will end up eating all your memory + swap no matter what you do, check in "top" to see how much memory the specific program eats.

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You should be running AT LEAST 1.75GB of swap. I recommend 2-2.5GB if your program is that memory consuming. Click on the link below because I defined what the swap function is really about in another thread on this forum.
Definition/Recommendations for SWAP Memory

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sag47, sorry, but you're wrong here...

All depends on *what* you're running - that's all. Even 2GB of memory maybe easily wasted by progs with memory leaks and you'll start to swap

One of my laptops has 256MB and it uses 128MB with MEPIS, and 0MB of 256MB swap. If there should be a logic for swap sizing - it should be more likely: swap size = amount of used memory. As swap space is often just reserved and not allocated. As well if you want to suspend to disk - you'll need same amount on swap, etc. But at any time you may just disable swap by 'swapoff' and see your system continue to work (or not) - all depends on what you're running!

Also, adding swap to hide memory problems is not a honest solution

Rgds,
-dim

kamikaze, I work at a company that has a VERY OLD ERP system, so I am quite interested in the good/bad that you find with TinyERP. I have heard of it and compier:
http://www.compiere.org/
as well as a few others.

Anyway, as to your issue. Yes, I too would recomment more physical swap space as sag47 mentions, but I also agree with dim, that if you have an application with a memory leak, then no amount of RAM or swap will help.

I would like to make a couple suggestions to see if we can prove that TinyERP is/isn't the problem.

Start your system without running TinyERP. Do "top" and "swapon -s" to get information on how swap is currently being used. Use the system for a little bit and monitor swap and RAM. Then, turn on TinyERP and continue to monitor things. We know that more RAM and swap will probably be used by starting the application(s), but watch it and see if it grows but doesn't shrink. If it gets out-of-hand, make note of the RAM and swap figures. Then, shut TinyERP off. Again, monitor top, RAM and swap. Do the figures get better? Do they stay the same? Does the OS eventually "clean up the mess"?

You might also go to the TinyERP website and see if anyone has posted an issue about memory or swap problems. It might be a known problem.

There might also need to be some tuning of postgresql, but I am not familiar enough with it to help there. I'm betting with the house on this one, that TinyERP is just not being nice

Jon

I am running exactly the same applications on Mepis 6.0 and on Mepis 6.0 Beta 2 on the same machine. On Beta 2 I do not have any problems at all. It looks like the OS cleans up the mess on the beta2 version but not on the final release. I will follow your suggestions and play a little bit with the system.

On another desktop I have exactly the same problem with the Mepis 6.0 so it should not be a hardware issue.

At the end of the day I will post my experience

Regarding the TinyERP I am just playing a little around with it to determinate if it is worth giving it a serious try. Until now the documentation was very poor and it was difficult figuring out how the system worked. This has changed with a new website and it looks that the developers are pretty active now. It looks like the system depend a little bit too much of one particular person and that could be dangerous (As with MEPIS???)

I have used Navision as regular user but I have not tried other open source ERPs. I started with TinyERP because it was very easy to install. If you give it a try I suggest that we could open a Tiny-thread in the forum. The starting is always a little bit hard on this kind of applications and sharing experience would be good.

I think that this kind of business applications is what really is needed to make Linux be a serious alternative to Gates. Commercial ERP are very expensive and often the companies invest in too few user licenses in order to "save" money. For a company it is great having as many users that you need without increasing your costs. That make growing easier!

OK I have played a little bit with my system:

On Top I got the following right after startup:

Mepis 6.0 Beta2:

Memory
254568k total
231988 used
22584 free
8136 buffered

SWAP:
1052216k total
0k used
1052216k free
139336k cached

Mepis6.0 have very similar staring values

When Mepis6.0 start using SWAP the used swap never goes down again it just keep increasing untill the machine finally use all swap and then freeze.

It looks like Xorg cause the memory loss. Sometimes it goes up to 50%MEM and it is very slow on turning down again. When the Xorg goes up to 50% the used SWAP keeps going up very fast and it never goes down again.

The beta2 does not react like this. On my beta2 the used swap goes down again and Xorg never goes up to 50%. When it goes up it turn down again very quickly.

Both systems are fully upgraded with symantec with the default reposteries.

I have tried the liveCD 6.0 and Xorg do not turn crayzy.

Any clues on fixing this?

Hey kamikaze, thanks for the info! Just yesterday I did an update to xorg (via apt) so if I do the command "Xorg -version" (uppercase "X") I am now showing "X Window System version 7.0.0". This version, as I say, just showed up yesterday. What version of xorg are you running? Could it have already been fixed?

Jon

Jon

Well I got version 7.0.0 on both beta2 and 6.0. The liveCD also have the same version installed so I do not understand what you are saying about "just showed up yesterday".

How du you update Xorg via apt? In synaptic I find a lot of "x-packages" but I can not find anything with just the name Xorg?

What should I reinstall if I want to start up again with a brand new and "clean" Xorg?

My problem is still there.

Could it be other programs leaking memory to Xorg? (As you can understand I do not know anything about memory leaks)

The best way to reinstall your Xorg is to start your computer with the Live CD. Then follow the instructions at this post...
http://www.mepis.org/node/8777#comment-41869
Try reinstalling your Xorg. It might just fix it. If you have an nVidia or ATI card then your best bet is to configure the cards using mutilities with the nvidia-glx driver or ATI fglrx driver. Click the link below to do that...
http://kb.tafusion.org/link.php?id=32

How's it working now?
SAM

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I followed your suggestions and the things keeps exactly the same. Looks like carlops has discovered a similar problem:

http://www.mepis.org/node/11542

My beta 2 works perfectly, My only issue so far on beta2 is that my setting in Configure-KDE-Control-Module do not keep the setting for "Times&Dates" and "Other" when rebooting

I am considering a clean install in order to se if I have messed the tings up or if it a 6.0 issue by nature.

Any more ideas before I do a clean install?

Is it normal that nearly all my RAM is consumed just after startup? (Look at my results from Top above)

Did anybody try some really hungry application to see how the swap and Xorg reacts on your machines?

That's not normal I don't think. I have 3072MB of RAM and on average it takes up 340-360MB of it at all times just idling. Running MEPIS 6.0 Final.

How big is your hard-drive? Is HD space critical b/c you don't have much? If not, then I'd say make the swap bigger. You can boot up to the CD/DVD and resize your Reiserfs and swap using QTParted to accomodate my recommended sizes for your memory hogging program. Worst comes to worse, resizing might corrupt your Reiserfs but then again you were going to fresh install anyways. It's worth a shot.

Although I'm still not sure about your RAM being taken up and never being purged. It sounds like there's more than one problem but if after resizing the problem persists, then try a reinstall to give it one more go.
SAM

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I do not think the size of swap is the problem. It looks that all activity on my swap stays there. The used swap never goes down even if i shut down all application. Restarting the session does not help, the used swap remain the same. Restarting the computer gives me back a cleaned out swap.

Something just do not work as it should. Making the swap bigger wil just delay the compleat freeeezzzzzzing and make the fishes swim a little bit longer.

I do not love the fishes but when they stop swimming i really hate them!!!!!

And..... if it is the size of the swap that is the problem..... why do my beta2 works perfectly running the same apps and using the same ram and swap?

You're most likely right. I guess I don't think enlarging the swap will make a difference.
If you hate the fish then why not remove them? Right click on your taskbar > Remove > Apps > KAquarium.
SAM

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How am I suppose to know when the fish stop swimming if I take them away? I like seeing the swimming fish. I hate when they stop swimming............

I want to make them swim faster and better......& never let them stop swimming

Ahhhh.....and remember the fish are defragmenting your hard drive. (This one I have stolen, but as it is a good one....)

Wait you mean to tell me they actually defragment constantly? The fish I mean???!!! If that's true then that's AWESOME! I thought the kernel auto-defragged the hard-drive. Can anybody confirm this???
SAM

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Look below at my new signature. The professional MEPIS forum is back up and it has MEPIS techs answering questions! You could try there. I'm sure they could help you.
SAM

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SAM, it is a joke stolen from drlizau on a "Kill the fish"/defrag thread:

http://www.mepis.org/node/10950

As I understand no user interfered defragging is necesary on a Linux-box.

Maybe I should try defragging my 6.0 partition to see if the fish likes defragged water better than the actual undefragged one.... (Sorry SAM)

HHHHHHahahaha
Darnit and I was all in a hurry to open the fish again. That's pretty funny. Damn I'm gullible (I mean dang).

WOW After falling for that I think I'm gonna go and then get over it.

hehe
SAM

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Sam, I have another one for you.

The technical method that the fish use to defragment the drive is the same set of tools that you can use to get Super High Data Compression. Simply take any file or directory that needs defragmenting or compressing and move it to /dev/null! It's simply amazing!

Thank you. I'll be here all week
('cause I lost my ticket out of town)

Jon

Ok Jon,
Since I'm an engineer here's a lil engineering joke...
Two atoms are sitting in a bar. One turns to the other and says "Dude, I lost an electron". The other says "Are you sure?". "I'm positive" he replied. SAM

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Good one Sam!

Yes, we are getting off-topic. But it's fun

Now we just need to find out if kamikaze's swap/ram/memory-leak is still happening.

That's it! It's the fish! They're sucking up the memory!, then they get full so they slow down!

Jon

Still the same problem here!

Not a big one as I normally use my beta2 which actually shows no problems at all.

I am waiting for your (Jon) monitoring of Xorg in order to se if this is a general problem, or if I just somehow have fu$%@@3 up something on my machine, before I do a clean reinstall.

One day when I am bored I will try a clean install in order to see if it helps.

Hey kamikaze, not much to report yet. I just did a quick "swapon -s" and "top" to see what's up. I have 1 GB RAM and 2 GB of swap. I'm not doing anything terribly interesting at the moment, but I am using ZERO swap. I am using 988200 KB of my total 1024 MB RAM, but that all at the moment. My computer has been up all day, but I haven't been at it during that time. So the computer's been kind of quiet today. I'll see if anything else happens tomorrow.

Jon

Ok I finally found out what caused my memory leak. My 6.0 have "gtk2-engines-gtk-qt" installed by default and my beta2 do not have it installed. I tried uninstalling "gtk2-engines-gtk-qt" on my 6.0. Xorg do not consume more memory than it should and my swap do not increase endlessly anymore.

The bad part is that my gtk-programs like firefox, thunderbird synaptic, gimp etc have a terrible look. (On my beta2 it looks nicer and i can not figure out why?)

Do anybody know how to control the gtk-programs appearance without using gtk2-engines-gtk-qt?

That's the stupidest thing I've ever read here.

As everyone knows, the fish defragment RAM, not the hard drive.

They do not!

They cool the Processor.

"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."

Yes, the kaquarium and fish have implemented the new Virtual Water Kooling (tm).

It avoids the mess of cleaning up real water if the aquarium should break. And if you have a faster processor, you can swap out the virtual 10 gallon tank and install a virtual 50 gallon tank:

# apt-get --purge remove vwk-10gal
# apt-get install vwk-50gal

(but you have to get bigger filters and change them more often).

After reading a recent NewsForge article, I did:

# apt-get --purge remove vwk-10gal
# apt-get install vwk-50gal
# apt-get install vwk-ethylene-glycol-plugin-en_0.0.1-2_all

and now all the fish are floating, upside down, at the top.

Is this a bug, or a feature?

"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."

Ok I admit that I started the fisherman-stories on my own tread..... But please I got a problem and I think it is a bug:

Ok I finally found out what caused my memory leak. My 6.0 have "gtk2-engines-gtk-qt" installed by default and my beta2 do not have it installed. I tried uninstalling "gtk2-engines-gtk-qt" on my 6.0. Xorg do not consume more memory than it should and my swap do not increase endlessly anymore.

The bad part is that my gtk-programs like firefox, thunderbird synaptic, gimp etc have a terrible look. (On my beta2 it looks nicer and i can not figure out why?)

Do anybody know how to control the gtk-programs appearance without using gtk2-engines-gtk-qt?

In order to try it out please try to open lets say 200 new windows in Firefox on mepis 6.0 very fast. "Ctrl+N, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+N, Ctrl+N......) On 6.0 Xorg grows rapidly to consume 60% of my memory (top) and finally my computer freeze. If I uninstall "gtk2-engines-gtk-qt" opening that many windows in firefox does not cause any problems. My beta2 does not show any problems either. If you got much ram you probably need to open more windows...Anyone could confirm the same problem ?

Seriously, I thought you had solved your problem to the point that it was nothing more than an academic question.

Google brought up several complaints similar to yours, with two notable claims of a complete resolution to the problem:

(1) Install the entirety of GNOME.
(2) Install the gtk-clearlooks theme

I cannot attest to the validity of either claim, however I do see a certain reasoning behind the full-GNOME installation. I have never had the problems you have described on systems having both GNOME and KDE installed.

"You have two labs?"
"Each has its place. At the university, I try to please the Federal Government. Here, I negotiate with God."