What is using all this memory?

[Colin Law]

On 7 June 2012 11:34, Alexander Skwar (ML)
<alexanders.mailinglists+nospam at gmail.com> wrote:
> Am 06/05/12 21:56, schrieb NoOp:
>>
>> On 06/03/2012 03:31 AM, Dotan Cohen wrote:
>>>
>>> After logging into Kubuntu 12.04 64 bit and not starting any programs,
>>> almost all the computer's memory is taken, and the system is swapping:
>>>
>>>  - antares:~$ free
>>>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
>>> Mem:       2050400    1947624     102776          0       5264     151796
>>> -/+ buffers/cache:    1790564     259836
>>> Swap:      2928636     749760    2178876
>>>
>>>
>>> Top does not show anything unusual. The user's home directory is not
>>> encrypted. I have disabled Akonadi and Nepomuk. What else should I
>>> check?
>>
>>
>> Try:
>> $ ps aux | awk '$11!~/\[*\]/ {print $6/1024" Mb -->  "$11,$12,$13,$14}' |
>> sort -g
>
>
> Is the output actually correct?
>
> If I run that command and check for all the running chromium-browser
> processes, I get:
>
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AuE69LM_eZgjdGcyZDN2akt4SVdtV0xBM1E5LXNsX2c
>
> or:
>
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AuE69LM_eZgjdGcyZDN2akt4SVdtV0xBM1E5LXNsX2c&output=html
>
> or:
>
> http://pastebin.com/reavfPcC
>
> Ie. 37 processes with a total of 1500 MB.
> Could that really be correct?

I think that where you have stuff loaded that is used by multiple
processes then it will appear in the total for each process.  So while
the number showing you the amount of memory in use by a process is
correct, some of that memory may also be used by other processes, so
it is not valid to add the values together.  Also that means that if
you kill a process you will not necessarily release all the memory
that it is using.

Colin