I have found something new. If I record a session: Ctrl-Alt-Shift-r
I have gnome-shell process to use a lot of memory and If I have already opened other applications I can have a "crash" of all X and then GDM appear for new login If I record a session and do simple things as switch to open application, open top bar, execute xterm command I see that memory used by gnome-shell increase in few second If I execute the following command: $ ps -eo pmem,pcpu,rss,vsize,args --sort=-%mem | head -n 2 I can see: %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 56.3 29.3 2248508 5375496 /usr/bin/gnome-shell but the session record stop (probably crash? ... but I don't see any error on syslog) after a while I get result as following %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 21.8 30.8 872260 3998460 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 21.8 31.1 872524 3998460 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 22.6 31.2 903056 4029180 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 22.9 31.2 918232 4044540 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 17.6 31.3 705876 3861944 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 18.0 31.4 721476 3872184 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 18.4 31.4 736780 3887544 /usr/bin/gnome-shell %MEM %CPU RSS VSZ COMMAND 18.9 31.5 757228 3908024 /usr/bin/gnome-shell note that I have executed only the command and nothing else It seem like no more used memory is not immediately available and it will released in future... so if an application need some memory it is used a new one. Probably the application see the free memory + unused allocated memory as the memory he can use, but in reality the unused allocated memory is not available. If this is correct it can explain why the swap is nearly not used and the result can be a X "crash". Ciao Davide -- System Information: Debian Release: buster/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (500, 'testing') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Foreign Architectures: i386 Kernel: Linux 4.13.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=it_IT.utf8, LC_CTYPE=it_IT.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=it_IT.utf8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/dash Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system) Versions of packages gnome-shell depends on: ii caribou 0.4.21-2 ii dconf-gsettings-backend [gsettings-backend] 0.26.1-1 ii evolution-data-server 3.26.2.1-1 ii gir1.2-accountsservice-1.0 0.6.45-1 ii gir1.2-atspi-2.0 2.26.0-2 ii gir1.2-caribou-1.0 0.4.21-2 ii gir1.2-freedesktop 1.54.1-3 ii gir1.2-gcr-3 3.20.0-5.1 ii gir1.2-gdesktopenums-3.0 3.24.1-1 ii gir1.2-gdm-1.0 3.26.2.1-2 ii gir1.2-geoclue-2.0 2.4.7-1 ii gir1.2-glib-2.0 1.54.1-3 ii gir1.2-gnomebluetooth-1.0 3.26.1-1 ii gir1.2-gnomedesktop-3.0 3.26.2-1 ii gir1.2-gtk-3.0 3.22.24-3 ii gir1.2-gweather-3.0 3.26.0-1 ii gir1.2-ibus-1.0 1.5.14-3 ii gir1.2-mutter-1 3.26.2-1 ii gir1.2-networkmanager-1.0 1.10.0-1 ii gir1.2-nmgtk-1.0 1.8.6-1 ii gir1.2-pango-1.0 1.40.12-1 ii gir1.2-polkit-1.0 0.105-18 ii gir1.2-rsvg-2.0 2.40.18-2 ii gir1.2-soup-2.4 2.60.2-1 ii gir1.2-upowerglib-1.0 0.99.6-1 ii gjs 1.50.2-1 ii gnome-backgrounds 3.26.2-1 ii gnome-settings-daemon 3.26.2-1 ii gnome-shell-common 3.26.2-1 ii gsettings-desktop-schemas 3.24.1-1 ii libasound2 1.1.3-5 ii libatk-bridge2.0-0 2.26.0-1 ii libatk1.0-0 2.26.0-2 ii libc6 2.25-2 ii libcairo2 1.15.8-2 ii libcanberra-gtk3-0 0.30-4 ii libcanberra0 0.30-4 ii libcroco3 0.6.12-1 ii libdbus-glib-1-2 0.108-3 ii libecal-1.2-19 3.26.2.1-1 ii libedataserver-1.2-22 3.26.2.1-1 ii libgcr-base-3-1 3.20.0-5.1 ii libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0 2.36.11-1 ii libgirepository-1.0-1 1.54.1-3 ii libgjs0g [libgjs0-libmozjs-52-0] 1.50.2-1 ii libglib2.0-0 2.54.1-1 ii libglib2.0-bin 2.54.1-1 ii libgstreamer1.0-0 1.12.3-1 ii libgtk-3-0 3.22.24-3 ii libical2 2.0.0-1 ii libjson-glib-1.0-0 1.4.2-2 ii libmutter-1-0 3.26.2-1 ii libnm-glib4 1.10.0-1 ii libnm-util2 1.10.0-1 ii libpango-1.0-0 1.40.12-1 ii libpangocairo-1.0-0 1.40.12-1 ii libpolkit-agent-1-0 0.105-18 ii libpolkit-gobject-1-0 0.105-18 ii libpulse-mainloop-glib0 11.1-1 ii libpulse0 11.1-1 ii libsecret-1-0 0.18.5-4 ii libstartup-notification0 0.12-4+b2 ii libsystemd0 235-3 ii libx11-6 2:1.6.4-3 ii libxfixes3 1:5.0.3-1 ii mutter 3.26.2-1 ii python3 3.6.3-2 Versions of packages gnome-shell recommends: ii chrome-gnome-shell 9-1 ii gdm3 3.26.2.1-2 ii gkbd-capplet 3.26.0-2 ii gnome-control-center 1:3.26.2-1 ii gnome-user-docs 3.26.2-1 ii iio-sensor-proxy 2.2-1 ii switcheroo-control 1.1-1 ii unzip 6.0-21 Versions of packages gnome-shell suggests: ii gir1.2-telepathyglib-0.12 0.24.1-1.1 ii gir1.2-telepathylogger-0.2 0.8.2-2 -- no debconf information
