Memory testing with exmap

Download data collected during testing -- Includes a Gnumeric spreadsheet, a better formatted version of this document, and all the screenshots.

Initial setup

Ubuntu 7.10 (Linux) with a test user account. Running on a AMD Duron with 256MB of RAM. Test account's gnome session is setup previously with no startup apps, 1 top panel, and no applets. The panel run dialog is used to start an xterm from which commands can be launched. Root user is logged in through ssh to capture exmap data. exmap module is loaded into kernel.
exmap-console-0.4.1 from OpenedHand is used.

00-panel-xterm
- Logged in with just a panel and xterm.
  screenshot
01-applets
- Added some applets to the panel:
- Menu
- Task switcher
- Tray
- Workspace switcher
- GNOME System monitor
- Clock
- Volume control
- Trash
  screenshot
02-evolution
- Start evolution (without calendar component) Viewing an IMAP account with a couple of e-mails, looking at a HTML e-mail.
  screenshot
03-clearlooks
- Change theme to Clearlooks:
  - gconftool --type=string \
    - --set /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme Clearlooks
  screenshot
04-default-theme-exit-ev
- Change back to default theme:
  - gconftool --type=string \
    - --set /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_theme asdf
  screenshot
05-ev-calendar
- Enable calendar components and restart evolution. Have a look at the calendar week view.
  screenshot
06-pidgin-gg
- Start pidgin and log into a Gadu Gadu account.
  screenshot
07-pidgin-no-plugin
- Remove all plugins and restart pidgin.
  screenshot
08-pidgin-gg-only
- Add back the Gadu Gadu plugin and restart pidgin.
  screenshot
09-back-to-desktop
- Exit pidgin.
  screenshot
10-tracker
- Add the tracker applet to the panel. Perform a search then close the results window.
- screenshot
11-ubuntu-session
- Start all programs that are in the GNOME startup list by default in Ubuntu. - nm-applet - gnome-power-manager - gnome-volume-manager - bluetooth-applet - update-manager
- screenshot
12-nautilus
- Start nautilus to get some wallpaper.
- screenshot

Use zsh
for f in [0-9]*.csv
- do
  - fgrep -v "Exmap log ends" $f | sed -e "s/Exmap log/Exmap log $f/"
  done > all.csv
Import into gnumeric
Hide all columns except pid,command,VM,emapped
Autofilter pid column to non-blank.
By hand, fix the totals formulas, because the cells are not correct after catting the spreadsheats together
Resize columns to fit numbers
Format the number columns to add separators for 1000s
Save as all.gnumeric
for xwd in *.xwdump
- do
  - convert $xwd $xwd:r.png
  done

The "effective mapped" figure given by exmap is used. Exmap divides the memory usage of shared libraries between the applications which use the libraries. Therefore memory is not counted twice, and memory usage is fairly accounted to the correct process. This is what is meant by "effective". Mapped memory includes pages from mmap'd files (e.g. the theme's icon caches are mmapped). Linux loads its 4k pages on demand, so only the areas of the file which are in use are resident.

This procedure uses a minimal desktop with very few programs running. Therefore there is little sharing of libraries. Thus, the numbers for individual programs are higher than they would be if measured as part of a full bells-and-whistles GNOME desktop.

[1] includes size increase of other processes [2] this number is much larger than it would normally be because there is little sharing of libraries in this setup.

Applets use a lot of memory. Everyone knows this but maybe less people know why.

Great looking theme, 500k isn't much to pay for it. However what is the relationship between the number of widgets on screen and a theme's memory usage?

What is this process anyway? The number given is the different between step 09 and step 01 and is about 1MB too big. It includes the increase in memory size of other processes (e.g. xterm) between the two steps.

(smart people have already tried this and have succeeded in reducing applet memory usage)

e.g. F-Spot without any photos, F-Spot with 100, 200, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000 photos.