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This is the worst piece of Linux advice ever. I use Linux for many years and every time I had a memory leak or a process using too much memory, every google sea

This is the worst piece of Linux advice ever. I use Linux for many years and every time I had a memory leak or a process using too much memory, every google search about the problem would lead to some "guru" giving this advice. This explanation which has been replicated thousands of times on every linux forum on the planet, prevents people from solving real problems. It started as a useful piece of information but nowadays it is spam.

jlgreco 13y ago
How does this understanding prevent people from solving real problems, simply by virtue of it being commonly cited? I don't understand your complaint.
- marcosdumay 13y ago
  I understand this is a complaint about Google. It won't help you find pages that cite a problem when a diffrent, but similar problem is too popular. I've seen that happening several times, but I'm not the GP, so I may still be missunderstanding him.
  - andmarios 13y ago
    Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Maybe I should've describe it as noise rather than spam. But it isn't only a Google search issue. Every time you will ask a question about a memory problem in Linux, everybody will give you this answer and classify you as newbie. When you explain them that this isn't the case, they will simply leave the thread/question and nobody would ever bother reading your problem again. People just go in denial mode because of this common knowledge, as Linux can't have memory leaks or any memory related problem.
    - jlgreco 13y ago
      Just give more information right off the bat. Don't say "XYZ is chewing up lots of RAM"; the best case scenario if you say that is they have to respond back asking for more information. Give that information to them in the first place "XYZ starts at XXXXMB shared and XXMB resident. Over five minutes it steadily climbs to XXXXMB resident. Shared remains constant at XXXMB." Doing this, I can't say I've ever been brushed off using this page.
      - andmarios 13y ago
        Doesn't work most of the time. I do but everyone ignores every word from your question except the “chewing RAM” part.
        Kluny 13y ago
        So leave out the chewing RAM part. Use vocabulary and explain it in a way that will alienate newbies but still be clear to experts.
    - jff 13y ago
      I think what you're running into is the shallow knowledge of people on forums/mailing lists. With a few exceptions, the people who actually know the most about the Linux kernel, glibc internals, etc. do not frequently post on StackOverflow. They're too busy, you know, working on the kernel and shit. So you get Joe Chucklefuck, he installed Ubuntu three months ago and posted on the Ubuntu forums about how he has no free RAM and Linux sucks. Someone showed him this page, and now when he sees your question about why malloc isn't working right, he thinks, "Aha! A memory problem! I shall post that linux ate my ram site!" Meanwhile, Ulrich Drepper isn't reading the list, even though he could tell you that the version of glibc you're using has a known bug in malloc. (He'll also tell you that you're stupid, but that's just because he's an asshole)
      - andmarios 13y ago
        Exactly. But I believe that developers have their hands full solving real problems, no need to ask them play level 1 support too. So when I find an issue that I can't be sure if it isn't my own fault, or I don't know the root cause of it, I try to gather some information before heading to the bugzilla. Memory issues are the only thing it is absolutely impossible to gather any useful information. Your only option is to learn C and debugging tools.
        jlgreco 13y ago
        A suspected memory-leak is definitely the sort of thing that you should report to the authors/maintainers. Even if you think it is triggered by something that you are doing wrong, their program should not respond to that incorrect input by leaking memory. Places like stackoverflow and IRC support channels are really only useful if the answer you are looking for can probably be found in some form of documentation somewhere. For things like suspected bugs or issues with specific implementation, it is best to go to the source (either the actual source, or the responsible devs (which almost always means going to a mailing list). Some particular projects are infamously dismissive specifically of memory leaks, really no matter how much detail you put into your report (Mozilla, I am looking squarely at you), but those should be the minority. Typically if you see run-away memory usage, and are able to provide enough details about what you are seeing, the developers should be receptive. That's been my experience anyway.
alandarev 13y ago
Exactly that! I had similar experience with MacOS memory issues, and all the answers I was getting: "MacOS is superior to Windows, its just Cache, the memory is actually free". Yet my applications could not allocate memory and were hogging whole OS as a consequence. Back on topic, never had similar 'cache' problems on Linux though.

jlgreco 13y ago

How does this understanding prevent people from solving real problems, simply by virtue of it being commonly cited? I don't understand your complaint.

marcosdumay 13y ago
I understand this is a complaint about Google. It won't help you find pages that cite a problem when a diffrent, but similar problem is too popular. I've seen that happening several times, but I'm not the GP, so I may still be missunderstanding him.
- andmarios 13y ago
  Yes, this is exactly what I mean. Maybe I should've describe it as noise rather than spam. But it isn't only a Google search issue. Every time you will ask a question about a memory problem in Linux, everybody will give you this answer and classify you as newbie. When you explain them that this isn't the case, they will simply leave the thread/question and nobody would ever bother reading your problem again. People just go in denial mode because of this common knowledge, as Linux can't have memory leaks or any memory related problem.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    Just give more information right off the bat. Don't say "XYZ is chewing up lots of RAM"; the best case scenario if you say that is they have to respond back asking for more information. Give that information to them in the first place "XYZ starts at XXXXMB shared and XXMB resident. Over five minutes it steadily climbs to XXXXMB resident. Shared remains constant at XXXMB." Doing this, I can't say I've ever been brushed off using this page.
    - andmarios 13y ago
      Doesn't work most of the time. I do but everyone ignores every word from your question except the “chewing RAM” part.
      - Kluny 13y ago
        So leave out the chewing RAM part. Use vocabulary and explain it in a way that will alienate newbies but still be clear to experts.
  - jff 13y ago
    I think what you're running into is the shallow knowledge of people on forums/mailing lists. With a few exceptions, the people who actually know the most about the Linux kernel, glibc internals, etc. do not frequently post on StackOverflow. They're too busy, you know, working on the kernel and shit. So you get Joe Chucklefuck, he installed Ubuntu three months ago and posted on the Ubuntu forums about how he has no free RAM and Linux sucks. Someone showed him this page, and now when he sees your question about why malloc isn't working right, he thinks, "Aha! A memory problem! I shall post that linux ate my ram site!" Meanwhile, Ulrich Drepper isn't reading the list, even though he could tell you that the version of glibc you're using has a known bug in malloc. (He'll also tell you that you're stupid, but that's just because he's an asshole)
    - andmarios 13y ago
      Exactly. But I believe that developers have their hands full solving real problems, no need to ask them play level 1 support too. So when I find an issue that I can't be sure if it isn't my own fault, or I don't know the root cause of it, I try to gather some information before heading to the bugzilla. Memory issues are the only thing it is absolutely impossible to gather any useful information. Your only option is to learn C and debugging tools.
      - jlgreco 13y ago
        A suspected memory-leak is definitely the sort of thing that you should report to the authors/maintainers. Even if you think it is triggered by something that you are doing wrong, their program should not respond to that incorrect input by leaking memory. Places like stackoverflow and IRC support channels are really only useful if the answer you are looking for can probably be found in some form of documentation somewhere. For things like suspected bugs or issues with specific implementation, it is best to go to the source (either the actual source, or the responsible devs (which almost always means going to a mailing list). Some particular projects are infamously dismissive specifically of memory leaks, really no matter how much detail you put into your report (Mozilla, I am looking squarely at you), but those should be the minority. Typically if you see run-away memory usage, and are able to provide enough details about what you are seeing, the developers should be receptive. That's been my experience anyway.

alandarev 13y ago

Exactly that! I had similar experience with MacOS memory issues, and all the answers I was getting: "MacOS is superior to Windows, its just Cache, the memory is actually free". Yet my applications could not allocate memory and were hogging whole OS as a consequence. Back on topic, never had similar 'cache' problems on Linux though.