Determining the amount of RAM required to build a particular OSS/FS application

[Michael Lueck]

C.J. Adams-Collier wrote:
> 12M of memory is an awful small amount.  I'm actually surprised you were able to boot an initrd with that little.

You did notice that I had given the -m switch to free, jah?

>> free -m
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:         12072      10262       1809          0        175       8935
> -/+ buffers/cache:       1151      10921
> Swap:          258        137        120

Available memory seems to fluctuate greatly. Presently I am seeing available:

>> free -m
>              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:         12072      11664        407          0         85      10233
> -/+ buffers/cache:       1345      10726
> Swap:          258         41        217

And 12 GB of RAM in a 32-bit system is extraordinary...
 > uname -a
Linux icpu2799 2.6.28.8-20120713a-iscsi-ntacker-3ware-sec8-fmon-igb-dif2-grsec #1 SMP Fri Jul 13 13:37:07 CEST 2012 i686 GNU/Linux

I just tried building the latest ImageMagick in the 6.6.x series: ImageMagick-6.6.9-10. This was the version series that came with the Debian distro the server is based on. It blew up as follows:

>   CC     wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-import.lo
>   CC     wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-magick-image.lo
>   CC     wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-magick-property.lo
>   CC     wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-magick-wand.lo
>   CC     wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-mogrify.lo
>
> cc1: out of memory allocating 408 bytes after a total of 60648620 bytes
> make[1]: *** [wand/wand_libMagickWand_la-mogrify.lo] Error 1
> make[1]: Leaving directory `/homepages/35/d157794216/htdocs/download/ImageMagick-6.6.9-10'
> make: *** [all] Error 2

In my mind, that allocated memory should come out to just under 58MB. Even well within the 407MB when I checked free just now.

Something is not adding up... Suggestions?

Sincerely,

-- 
Michael Lueck
Lueck Data Systems
http://www.lueckdatasystems.com/