baffling memory usage

[Lawrence D'Oliveiro]

In message <mailman.2546.1224154865.3487.python-list at python.org>, Tim
Redfern wrote:

> My python code runs nicely when launched manually from a login shell, ps
> shows its using 11MB or so of memory.
> 
> However, when I try to launch the same code from a startup script, it
> uses over 22MB and the system grinds to a halt. Specifically its calling
> a speech synthesis program (flite) from the os.system() function, which
> requires 4-5MB, and this doesnt work from the startup script.

One useful thing to look at might be the /proc/<pid>/maps file (where <pid>
is the process ID). This shows you the memory regions, shared libraries etc
for the specified process. Might give you a clue as to what's different in
the two situations.