[HLUG] Clogged cache?

[grhmc at lavabit.com]

> On 23/04/2008, grhmc at lavabit.com <grhmc at lavabit.com> wrote:
>> > On 22/04/2008, Graham Cole <GrhmC at lavabit.com> wrote:
>>  >> Hi everyone
>>  >>  I'm trying to understand my ailing desktop which can't cope with a
>>  >>  normal workload these days. It slows down when the browser is used
>> for
>>  >> a
>>  >>  while and eventually it gets so slow that I have to press the reset
>>  >>  button and start again. Printing a photo also slows things to a
>> stop.
>>  >>  I suspect a fault with the RAM because once recently I got an error
>>  >>  message: E:Cache open()failed, please report. I think it was cured
>> with
>>  >>  dpkg --configure -a
>>  >>  Is this situation familiar to anyone?
>>  >>  I'm using Ubuntu 7.10
>>  >
>>  > Hi Graham,
>>  >
>>  > I wouldn't think it is a RAM fault as that usually kills your
>> computer
>>  > pretty quickly.  To start simply, is your disk full?  I would find
>> out
>>  > by opening a terminal window and typing:
>>  >
>>  > $ df -h
>>  >
>>  > If any of the columns have a percentage greater than 95% then that's
>>  > probably the issue.
>>  >
>>  > Thanks
>>  > Mark
>>  >>
>>
>>
>> I found no high percentage. I used the system monitor and saw there was
>> no
>>  activity in the swap file: always 0%. Recently I did have to remake the
>>  swap file and that was satisfactory at the time. The system got
>>  progressively worse in the last couple of days and is now practically
>>  useless. I'm using a laptop now but I'd like to rescue the desktop!
>>  The RAM use shown in the system monitor goes up fairly steadily to
>>  something like 70% and then the system becomes slow and unusable.
>> Should
>>  the RAM use go up and down rather than go up steadily?
>
> Yep, welcome to Linux.  Like any good operating system Linux tries to
> use all your remaining RAM for caching and buffering to avoid
> accessing slow external drives (like hard disks).  A healthy Linux
> system is always using as much RAM as possible!
>
> However your problem seems to indicate that an application is using up
> a lot of memory.  If you could run the following command 'ps auxwf' in
> the terminal once the computer gets slow and send it here I should be
> able to see if that is the problem.
>
> Thanks
> Mark
>

Thanks Mark....I started up again without Evolution and my browser has not
caused a problem. It seems likely that Evolution is the culprit.
Evolution broke for me in a previous Ubuntu incarnation and I swapped to
Sylpheed. Since lavabit switched on webmail I'll make use of that and
leave Evolution unused. If that cures my problem I'll probably get a fresh
set of applications when I upgrade to Ubuntu 8.4
So I'll wait and see. Thanks again for the help

Graham