X memory leak with desktop effects enabled.

[O. Sinclair]

On 05/01/2015 23:19, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
> 
> 
> On Sat, Jan 3, 2015 at 2:51 AM, O. Sinclair <o.sinclair at gmail.com
> <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com>> wrote:
> 
>     On 02/01/2015 20:36, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     > On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 6:38 AM, Myriam Schweingruber <myriam at kubuntu.org <mailto:myriam at kubuntu.org>
>     > <mailto:myriam at kubuntu.org <mailto:myriam at kubuntu.org>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     >     On Fri, Jan 2, 2015 at 5:53 AM, O. Sinclair <o.sinclair at gmail.com <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com>
>     >     <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com>>> wrote:
>     >
>     >         On 01/01/2015 18:28, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa wrote:
>     >         >
>     >         >
>     >         > On Tue, Dec 30, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Jose Ildefonso Camargo Tolosa
>     >         > <ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com>
>     <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com
>     <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com>>
>     >         <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com
>     <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com>
>     >         <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com
>     <mailto:ildefonso.camargo at gmail.com>>>> wrote:
>     >         >
>     >         >
>     >         >
>     >         >     I am confirming this only occurs with kwin, I used
>     compiz and it
>     >         >     didn't leak memory for 12 hours.  I tried replacing
>     kwin with compiz
>     >         >     on a kde session (it worked, mostly), had some
>     compatibility issues,
>     >         >     but I was able to use it for several hours.  I later
>     tried "unity"
>     >         >     session with compiz and many effects enabled: it
>     worked just fine too.
>     >         >
>     >         >     Today I tried to wipe-clean my .kde directory, and
>     refrain from
>     >         >     changing any settings.  I am still observing and
>     will update.
>     >         >
>     >         >
>     >         > It leaks memory, at a slower rate, but still X memory
>     usage gets to over
>     >         > 2GB in less than 12 hours.
>     >         >
>     >         I am not seeing this at all on my laptop with intel i5 cpu
>     and intel
>     >         graphics,
>     >
>     >
>     >     Same here, no leaks whatsoever with Kubuntu 14.10, KDE 4.14.2 with
>     >     Intel on board graphics on this Intel Core i7 laptop. Uptime
>     is now
>     >     around 90 hours, Kwin uses 14 Mb of shared memory, XOrg uses
>     65 Mb.
>     >
>     >     I strongly suggest you check on your installation, something
>     must be
>     >     wrong somewhere.
>     >
>     >
>     >
>     > I think I already did it, I tried to wipe *all* KDE configurations,
>     > tried to purge and reinstall, finally tried another windows manager
>     > (compiz), since I switched from kwin to compiz: no issues.  There is
>     > *something* peculiar about KDE code in general that has a tendency on
>     > "exposing" driver issues, there was a time when "konsole" would crash
>     > nvidia drivers, and would cause other issues with AMD drivers (random
>     > freezing), KDE's solution was something like "hey, it is a driver
>     issue,
>     > not our fault, the driver maker should fix it", and the problem
>     remained
>     > there for *years*, I cared *so* much about KDE, that I stopped using
>     > konsole and still used the rest of the desktop, however, my coworkers
>     > just switched to other windows managers, and even other OS.
>     >
>     > It is already hard to get people out of the "Unity" momentum caused by
>     > Ubuntu, it is even harder if KDE can't run reliably, but Unity or
>     Gnome
>     > does... people won't think about drivers and stuff, they will point to
>     > KDE, even if it is not KDE's fault, because Gnome and  Unity work just
>     > fine (I really don't know if they implemented workarounds or whatever,
>     > but the facts are: Gnome AND Unity work just fine with nVidia,
>     AMD, and
>     > Intel, whereas KDE only seems to work reliably on Intel, and mostly
>     > nVidia, at least recently).
>     >
>     > It is painful for me, but this time I was not able to stop using just
>     > the part of KDE that was failing (like I did with konsole a few years
>     > ago), because compiz won't work reliably with KDE, so, I  had to
>     switch
>     > desktop environment (because I won't stop using my GPU just for a
>     > desktop environment, and because I have no other GPU I can use
>     with OpenCL).
>     >
>     > I will keep an eye on KDE, because I really like it, but for the time
>     > being, I have to work, and I just can't do that with KDE for now.
>     >
>     Given that my laptop has the dreaded hybrid intel/amd graphics I am not
>     so sure you are correct. Or put differently it still works though the
>     AMD is rarely used as I don't game or whatever much
> 
> 
> I am not sure you will be able to make kwin use AMD chipset on that
> laptop.  Next time either the graphics driver gets updated, or when next
> KDE gets released, I will give another try, for now, I just leave this
> piece of warning to those fellow AMD users out there: keep an eye on X
> memory usage while using KDE.  It is likely that using free driver will
> fix this, but it just doesn't work with my current GPU (and OpenCL was
> not properly supported last time I checked).
> 
> Unfortunately, some apps would be *really* slow on KDE with desktop
> effects disable (only workaround I was able to find without dropping
> KDE), particularly in LibreOffice you can see toolbar icons being draw
> one at a time... 
> 
Well I do use the radeon driver as the fglrx for some reason stopped
working with my hardware since kubuntu 11.10 (if I recall correct). It
gives me no problems and as I don't really do anything that needs a
"better" gpu than the Intel I am not worried