Why is my application memory growing

Hi,

I have a 64 bit 3500MHz box with 1 gig of RAM. Running SuSE 9.2. Stock kernel (2.6.8-24.16) all the latest updates. I have a problem. If I leave the machine on for a while, even when I'm not working on it, theapplicationmemory fills. I find that the machine is quite sluggish if it's not been used in a while and there is HDD activity when doing simple things like changing desktops. I think it's related to a memory leak in a library:-

I know it is normal for Linux to have full RAM (unused RAM is wasted RAM, blah blah) it's normal for it to fill the cache not application memory. Look at the output of free, this is with no large apps loaded: $free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1000 983 17 0 172 101 --+ buffers-cache: 710 290 Swap: 1945 6 1939

So looking at top, sorted by memory usage, I noted that although the resident size of the apps is fairly normal (I suppose), their virtual sizes are huge. I know a lot of this is shared, but it's still odd. I don't think I've seen this pattern of high VIRT and SHR usage on other machines. Why are apps like amaroK sucking up 1-4 gig? Does the following look normal to anyone? Any suggestions?

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ SWAP COMMAND 11452 raac 16 0 218m 23m 187m S 0.0 2.3 0:04.30 195m amarokapp 9323 root 15 0 311m 159m 152m S 3.0 15.9 20:42.77 151m X 9447 raac 15 0 142m 27m 121m S 0.0 2.7 0:10.01 115m kopete 9411 raac 15 0 119m 11m 110m S 0.0 1.1 0:02.19 108m kded 9449 raac 16 0 124m 16m 115m S 0.0 1.6 0:02.03 108m konqueror 9453 raac 16 0 117m 21m 106m S 0.0 2.2 0:01.97 95m konqueror 9751 raac 16 0 126m 31m 101m S 0.0 3.2 0:04.36 94m knode 11634 raac 16 0 99.2m 11m 94m S 0.0 1.1 0:02.89 87m knotes 11614 raac 16 0 98448 13m 84m S 0.0 1.3 0:00.99 82m suseplugger 11626 raac 16 0 94244 9720 88m S 0.0 0.9 0:00.47 82m korgac 9437 raac 15 0 97376 13m 88m S 0.0 1.3 0:05.34 81m kdesktop 9439 raac 15 0 96580 14m 87m S 1.0 1.4 0:08.51 80m kicker 9450 raac 15 0 92268 13m 83m S 0.0 1.3 0:03.73 77m konsole 9452 raac 15 0 92024 12m 83m S 0.0 1.3 0:01.80 76m konsole 9451 raac 15 0 91860 13m 83m S 0.0 1.4 0:01.81 75m konsole 9648 raac 15 0 90168 12m 82m S 1.0 1.2 6:26.99 75m ksysguard

I'm not really sure where to look next. Any suggestions would be welcomed because right now I have a very fast computer which is behaving distinctly below par. I don't want to re-install but at this rate I might...

Cheers, Rob

-- robertcampbell.co.uk remove FERRRET to reply