On 2002.08.18 12:21 Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 11:32:54AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
I have recently noticed an unusual side-effect of running Wine. When I first start up my system, /proc/meminfo reports MemTotal as 256892 kb. After running Wine for awhile, /proc/meminfo reports MemTotal as 32680 kb. The system performs as if it only had 32 MB of RAM. A reboot of the system resets total memory to the proper value.
My question is:
1) Has anybody else encountered this? 2) Does anyone know what causes this, or better yet how to avoid it? 3) Is there anyway to recover the lost RAM short of a reboot?
Huh ? This is very, very, VERY strange ! Something like this should never happen. Are you sure it's caused by Wine only, or maybe it is due to faulty memory instead ? (and thus the board/Linux notices that only 32MB are useable and resorts to accessing 32MB only).
Well I can't say with absolute certainty that it's caused by Wine, but the system runs without any problems for extended periods of time so long as I don't run Wine, and consistently 'loses' memory when I *do* run wine. I don't know exactly what's going on. I do know that there appears to be some sort of threshold that is reached at which point the memory hiding occurs (e.g., the same issue arises whether I run Wine for 5 hours at one shot or for 30 minutes a day for 10 days) and the threshold isn't 'reset' until I reboot.
Again, I'm utterly puzzled when hearing such a story. Or maybe Wine accesses some Linux memory management function in some way that causes Linux to tamper with the value for some reason ? This wouldn't be the first time that Wine is the only program to reveal some severe bug in Linux memory management...
Definitely try upgrading your kernel, too.
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens. Thanx for the input, Andreas. Ian
On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 08:17:09AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
On 2002.08.18 12:21 Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 11:32:54AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
After running Wine for awhile, /proc/meminfo reports MemTotal as 32680 kb. The system performs as if it only had 32 MB of RAM. A reboot of the system resets total memory to the proper value.
My question is:
1) Has anybody else encountered this? 2) Does anyone know what causes this, or better yet how to avoid it? 3) Is there anyway to recover the lost RAM short of a reboot?
Huh ? This is very, very, VERY strange ! Something like this should never happen. Are you sure it's caused by Wine only, or maybe it is due to faulty memory instead ? (and thus the board/Linux notices that only 32MB are useable and resorts to accessing 32MB only).
Well I can't say with absolute certainty that it's caused by Wine, but the system runs without any problems for extended periods of time so long as I don't run Wine, and consistently 'loses' memory when I *do* run wine.
I don't know exactly what's going on. I do know that there appears to be some sort of threshold that is reached at which point the memory hiding occurs (e.g., the same issue arises whether I run Wine for 5 hours at one shot or for 30 minutes a day for 10 days) and the threshold isn't 'reset' until I reboot.
Again, I'm utterly puzzled when hearing such a story. Or maybe Wine accesses some Linux memory management function in some way that causes Linux to tamper with the value for some reason ? This wouldn't be the first time that Wine is the only program to reveal some severe bug in Linux memory management...
Definitely try upgrading your kernel, too.
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens. *sigh* You're definitely not of the easy kind of people, are you ? ;-) A lot of people would just upgrade and be happy in case the bug is fixed, but you... :)
Well, if you're so eager to learn what the problem is, then I'd suggest to get your hands pitch black dirty immediately ;-) Find out where /proc/meminfo gets fed with values, then find out which part messes with the MemTotal value in any way. Hmm, arch/i386/mm/init.c/si_meminfo() sounds like a sure winner. I'd suggest looking for the totalram_pages variable (add logging whenever that one gets modified in some way). OTOH I don't see any place where there is a direct assignment of that variable. Hmm, where does that variable even get initialized then ??? (well, probably declaration auto initialization then) Oh well, good luck ! ;) -- The Declaration of Software Freedom: http://freedevelopers.net/freedomdec/index.php
Happens to Me too, it appears Micro$oft has been shoving down function calls since 1995 to make sure you have the right ram. I have 320Mb, set to imitate winme, but my M$ apps say I still don't have enough Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 08:17:09AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
On 2002.08.18 12:21 Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 11:32:54AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
After running Wine for awhile, /proc/meminfo reports MemTotal as
32680
kb. The system performs as if it only had 32 MB of RAM. A reboot
of
the system resets total memory to the proper value.
My question is:
1) Has anybody else encountered this? 2) Does anyone know what causes this, or better yet how to avoid it? 3) Is there anyway to recover the lost RAM short of a reboot?
Huh ? This is very, very, VERY strange ! Something like this should never happen. Are you sure it's caused by Wine only, or maybe it is due to faulty memory instead ? (and thus the board/Linux notices that only 32MB are useable and resorts to accessing 32MB only).
Well I can't say with absolute certainty that it's caused by Wine, but the system runs without any problems for extended periods of time so long as I don't run Wine, and consistently 'loses' memory when I *do* run wine.
I don't know exactly what's going on. I do know that there appears to be some sort of threshold that is reached at which point the memory hiding occurs (e.g., the same issue arises whether I run Wine for 5 hours at one shot or for 30 minutes a day for 10 days) and the threshold isn't 'reset' until I reboot.
Again, I'm utterly puzzled when hearing such a story. Or maybe Wine accesses some Linux memory management function in some way that causes Linux to tamper with the value for some reason ? This wouldn't be the first time that Wine is the only program to reveal some severe bug in Linux memory management...
Definitely try upgrading your kernel, too.
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens.
*sigh* You're definitely not of the easy kind of people, are you ? ;-) A lot of people would just upgrade and be happy in case the bug is fixed, but you... :)
Well, if you're so eager to learn what the problem is, then I'd suggest to get your hands pitch black dirty immediately ;-)
Find out where /proc/meminfo gets fed with values, then find out which part messes with the MemTotal value in any way.
Hmm, arch/i386/mm/init.c/si_meminfo() sounds like a sure winner. I'd suggest looking for the totalram_pages variable (add logging whenever that one gets modified in some way). OTOH I don't see any place where there is a direct assignment of that variable. Hmm, where does that variable even get initialized then ??? (well, probably declaration auto initialization then)
Oh well, good luck ! ;)
On Mon, Aug 26, 2002 at 08:18:54PM +1000, Mathew McBride wrote:
Happens to Me too, it appears Micro$oft has been shoving down function calls since 1995 to make sure you have the right ram. I have 320Mb, set to imitate winme, but my M$ apps say I still don't have enough Are you sure you're talking about what we are talking about ?
We are talking about a *kernel issue*, whereas you seem to be talking about a *wine resource failure issue*, two things that don't match up at all, I guess. -- Andreas Mohr Stauferstr. 6, D-71272 Renningen, Germany Tel. +49 7159 800604 http://mohr.de.tt
On 2002.08.25 07:38 Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 25, 2002 at 08:17:09AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
On 2002.08.18 12:21 Andreas Mohr wrote:
On Sun, Aug 18, 2002 at 11:32:54AM -0400, Ian D. Stewart wrote:
After running Wine for awhile, /proc/meminfo reports MemTotal as 32680 kb. The system performs as if it only had 32 MB of RAM. A reboot of the system resets total memory to the proper value.
My question is:
1) Has anybody else encountered this? 2) Does anyone know what causes this, or better yet how to avoid it? 3) Is there anyway to recover the lost RAM short of a reboot?
Huh ? This is very, very, VERY strange ! Something like this should never happen. Are you sure it's caused by Wine only, or maybe it is due to faulty memory instead ? (and thus the board/Linux notices that only 32MB are useable and resorts to accessing 32MB only).
Well I can't say with absolute certainty that it's caused by Wine, but the system runs without any problems for extended periods of time so
long as I don't run Wine, and consistently 'loses' memory when I *do* run wine.
I don't know exactly what's going on. I do know that there appears to be some sort of threshold that is reached at which point the memory hiding occurs (e.g., the same issue arises whether I run Wine for 5 hours at one shot or for 30 minutes a day for 10 days) and the threshold isn't 'reset' until I reboot.
Again, I'm utterly puzzled when hearing such a story. Or maybe Wine accesses some Linux memory management function in
some
way that causes Linux to tamper with the value for some reason ? This wouldn't be the first time that Wine is the only program to reveal some severe bug in Linux memory management...
Definitely try upgrading your kernel, too.
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens. *sigh* You're definitely not of the easy kind of people, are you ? ;-) A lot of people would just upgrade and be happy in case the bug is fixed, but you... :)
Guilty as charged ;)
Well, if you're so eager to learn what the problem is, then I'd suggest to get your hands pitch black dirty immediately ;-)
Find out where /proc/meminfo gets fed with values, then find out which part messes with the MemTotal value in any way.
Hmm, arch/i386/mm/init.c/si_meminfo() sounds like a sure winner. I'd suggest looking for the totalram_pages variable (add logging whenever that one gets modified in some way). OTOH I don't see any place where there is a direct assignment of that variable. Hmm, where does that variable even get initialized then ??? (well, probably declaration auto initialization then)
Oh well, good luck ! ;)
Thanks. I'll report back once I know more. Ian
From: "Ian D. Stewart" <idstewart(a)compuvative.com>
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens.
Not at all. Wine has always been distributed as 'alpha' software, and thus we can expect that a lot of things are continuously getting fixed. Nobody's going to try fixing something that's only reported in an old version of the software. So you upgrade, test again, and if it's still a problem report the bug. To differentiate from Windows, nobody's suggesting you remove and reinstall Linux, here :-)
On 2002.08.26 09:03 Derek Broughton wrote:
From: "Ian D. Stewart" <idstewart(a)compuvative.com>
I have no problem with upgrading, but I would like to know *why* I am upgrading (i.e., what bug is causing the problem, and how does the new kernel address the bug). To do otherwise strikes me as being equivelant to the tendency in the Windows community whenever something odd happens.
Not at all. Wine has always been distributed as 'alpha' software, and thus we can expect that a lot of things are continuously getting fixed. Nobody's going to try fixing something that's only reported in an old version of the software. So you upgrade, test again, and if it's still a problem report the bug.
I thonk you misunderstood my e-mail. The problem apparently does not lie with Wine per se (I have no problem with upgrading Wine, especially considering its alpha status and active development, and have on several occasions IOT track down regression bugs), but rather with the memory management aspects of the Linux kernel.
To differentiate from Windows, nobody's suggesting you remove and reinstall Linux, here :-)
Unless I misunderstood Andreas' e-mail, that i pretty much what he is recomending. Ian
On Mon, 26 Aug 2002, Ian D. Stewart wrote: [...]
To differentiate from Windows, nobody's suggesting you remove and reinstall Linux, here :-)
Unless I misunderstood Andreas' e-mail, that i pretty much what he is recomending.
Not quite. You can compile and run a new Linux kernel without reinstalling your system. Furthermore, you can switch back and forth between the old kernel and the new one at each reboot. Andreas was recommending a blind upgrade with a prayer that the bug be fixed, but you can also view this as a way to diagnose the problem, pretty much like one would do a binary search on Wine's CVS sources to find when a bug appeared. In your case, either the bug is still present in the latest kernel which then means you are not wasting your time trying to fix a bug that has already been fixed, or it is no longer present and then analyzing the differences between the two kernels may help you find what was wrong. Note: I'm running Wine a lot on my system and have never seen MemTotal change (with 2.4.17 and older kernels). -- Francois Gouget fgouget(a)free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ Any sufficiently advanced bug is indistinguishable from a feature. -- from some indian guy
On 2002.08.27 17:55 Francois Gouget wrote:
Note: I'm running Wine a lot on my system and have never seen MemTotal change (with 2.4.17 and older kernels).
Thanx for the reply Francois. Best I can make out, somewhere along the line memory is being reserved, and then never being unreserved. Not sure, but this behaviour *may* be specific to one application. I haven't had the time or inclination to track it down further, but it is on my back burner for things to do when it really starts to annoy me ;) Ian
participants (5)
-
Andreas Mohr -
Derek Broughton -
Francois Gouget -
Ian D. Stewart -
Mathew McBride