Thin clients freeze hard when out of RAM

Tom Hoffman tom.hoffman at gmail.com
Mon Sep 17 16:35:50 BST 2007


Perhaps this is a more direct solution if you could push the setting
to all the users?

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips#oth_memcache

--Tom

On 9/2/07, Jim Kronebusch <jim at winonacotter.org> wrote:
> Problem solved (or at least identified).  Firefox has a bug if you want to call it that,
> that caches pixmaps to X11.  This can chew up all available RAM in a hurry and once full
> completely freezes the client.  There is a hack you can put into ldm that will not allow
> any application to consume 100% of RAM causing the app to crash upon request of too much
> RAM, but at least keeps the client running.  But this still doesn't allow you to open
> certain websites.  Upon testing of other browsers (thanks to Robert Arkiletion) I found
> that if you have Firefox working the way you want, just apt-get install opera and your
> good to go.  Now I know that Opera isn't exactly the preferred client and also isn't
> "free" software, but if you're having trouble with Firefox crashing your clients, this
> is a good workaround until a way to keep firefox from caching pixmaps is found.
>
> Also modifying the default nbdswap size from 32MB to whatever you need to handle certain
> sites (the ones some of our students ran into required a minimum of 500MB) helps.  But
> this can quickly use up HD space on the server, create more network activity, and is
> slower than the use of RAM.  So although this works as well it is not a perfect solution.
>
> However if you absolutely need to use Firefox addition of the ldm hack along with the
> nbdswap increase, things should be very usable although not ideal.
>
> If anyone wants a good pet project....please find a way to disable firefox from pixmap
> caching to X11.  It looks like many could benefit from this.
>
> I will post in 2 separate posts a howto for addition of the xramperc option in ldm and
> how to increase your nbdswap.
>
> Thanks,
> Jim
>
> --
> This message has been scanned for viruses and
> dangerous content by the Cotter Technology
> Department, and is believed to be clean.
>
>
> --
> edubuntu-users mailing list
> edubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/edubuntu-users
>



More information about the edubuntu-users mailing list