Stability and Memory Pressure in 8.2

[Gary C Martin]

On 10 Sep 2008, at 00:15, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:

> I played some with python -v and got some more data about shell memory
> usage at startup, after taking out gst and numpy.
>
> 1)
>
> 6.7mb are taken by the following modules, which I don't think we can
> get rid of in any way:
>
> import os # precompiled from /usr/lib/python2.5/os.pyc
> import gettext # precompiled from /usr/lib/python2.5/gettext.pyc
> import gtk # directory /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/gtk
> import gobject # directory
> /home/marco/sugar-jhbuild/install/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ 
> gtk-2.0/gobject
> import ConfigParser # precompiled from /usr/lib/python2.5/ 
> ConfigParser.pyc
> import wnck # dynamically loaded from
> /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/wnck.so
> import dbus # directory /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/dbus
> import telepathy # directory
> /home/marco/sugar-jhbuild/install/lib/python2.5/site-packages/ 
> telepathy
> import hippo # dynamically loaded from
> /home/marco/sugar-jhbuild/install/lib/python2.5/site-packages/hippo.so
> import rsvg # dynamically loaded from
> /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/gtk-2.0/rsvg.so
>
> 2)
>
> If I remove all the sugar code (both shell and toolkit) from the
> complete list of imports we go up to 7.6mb
>
> 3)
>
> Total memory usage for the running shell is 16.8mb. I think runtime is
> around +1mb compared to import only. (I should verify import only
> though, to be sure).
>
> ---
>
> So if I my measurements are correct and I'm not missing something:
>
> * There is little to gain by trying to strip down dependencies
> further, we have a margin of only 0.9mb.
>
> * Importing all the Sugar code takes 8mb. ~5mb of these seem to be
> triggered by the font size computations in sugar.graphics.style. I
> suspect that either this memory will be allocated later lazily when
> starting to render font or it will be freed by the gc (probably a bit
> of both). But we should verify that code carefully and eventually
> figure out why the fonts would be using all of this private memory.

Not sure if this is any help or just muddying the waters, but I  
noticed when using pmap on the sugarshell process between 711 and 759  
that there is an [anon] block that has increased by 5Mb since 711.

711
[olpc at xo-05-24-02 ~]$ pmap 1676
1676:   python /usr/bin/sugar-shell
--- snip ---
0804a000  13888K rw---    [ anon ]
--- snip ---
  total    54988K

759
[olpc at xo-05-24-02 ~]$ pmap 1316
1316:   python /usr/bin/sugar-shell
--- snip ---
09865000  18996K rw---    [ anon ]
--- snip ---
  total    62188K

On cursory glance through the other lib's shown by pmap linked in, I  
don't see any obvious monster deltas in 759 vs 711. Sure, most of the  
libs seem to have grown a little in size, but the single,  
unfortunately opaque, [anon] block seems to hold the majority of  
whatever the mem delta between 711 and 759 is (as reported by pmap).

The pmap man page describes the [anon] blocks as: Anonymous memory is  
reported for the process heap, stack, for 'copy on write' pages with  
mappings mapped with MAP_PRIVATE. Memory not relating to any named   
object or file within the file system is reported as [ anon ]. The  
pmap command displays common names for cer-                  tain  
known anonymous memory mappings, such as: [ heap ] The process heap.  
[ stack ] The process stack. If the common name for the mapping is  
unknown, pmap displays [ anon ] as the mapping name.

BTW: pmap listed fonts for the 759 sugarshell process as:
b58f6000    244K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu/DejaVuLGCSansMono- 
Bold.ttf
b5933000     60K r----  /usr/share/fonts/kacst/KacstArt.ttf
b5942000    436K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu/DejaVuLGCSans-Bold.ttf
b59af000    264K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu/DejaVuLGCSansMono.ttf
b59f1000    620K r----  /usr/share/fonts/paktype/PakTypeNaqsh.ttf
b5a94000    468K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu/DejaVuLGCSans.ttf

For 711 they were:
b5de0000    408K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu-lgc/DejaVuLGCSans- 
Bold.ttf
b5e46000    248K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu-lgc/ 
DejaVuLGCSansMono.ttf
b5e84000     92K r----  /usr/share/fonts/arabic/KacstQura.ttf
b5ea4000    428K r----  /usr/share/fonts/dejavu-lgc/DejaVuLGCSans.ttf

Sorry for the noise.

--Gary