swap problems

[pfifo fast]

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 8:36 AM, Joep L. Blom <jlblom at neuroweave.nl> wrote:
> Hi,
> I have a puzzling problem.
> My system (AMD Phenom II 4-core with 4 Gb memory) uses gradually more swap
> space. OS: Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid)
> I have gkrellm running from the start and see the swap space increase from 0
> Mb to now (>8 days on) 4639 Mb.
> Moreover my free memory is also decreasing (must be logical?). when I start
> I have approx. 2Gb free and now it's barely 700 Mb.
> Has anybody an idea how to see what programs are so sloppy written that they
> don't release memory when they exit, or, which processes refuse to disappear
> and why the swap space isn't released.
> When I try swapoff it can't perform as it doesn't have enough memory which I
> think is logical as > 4 Gb cannot be stored in memory. But why doesn't
> swapoff simply remove all garbage, except the space used by running
> processes.
> I know, the most simple solution is to restart but IMHO it is M$ practice to
> program sloppy but I expected Open Source programs to behave better.
> Has anybody ideas?
> Joep
>
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Use the program 'top' to see what program is using so much memory,
then report back to us with that information.