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On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, baslinux AT lists.ibiblio.org wrote:

> Message from Steven
> ===================
> Sindi wrote:
> > xli and links2 both fail on my 1.5MB image
>
> That is the opposite of what I found.  xli displayed
> my 1.6mb image (even with swap turned off) and links2
> displayed it with swap on (but failed with swap off).
> Keep in mind that I did this on an old laptop so my
> screen was only 640x480.

BL2:
I just tested links2 that I compiled (svgalib support only) in BL2 with 
16MB and tried to view the large image.  Without a swap file it displays 
the outline of a small square in the upper left of a blank page. With a 
swap file it displays bottom and right scroll bars on top of the directory 
listing (I go to a directory with some photos in it first) and then 
nothing else happens and the mouse won't move and top no longer lists 
links2 as running.  If I switch to another terminal and back to where 
links was I see the usual prompt on black screen.


If I run the delilinux links2 under Xvesa (640x480) and try to view
that same photo, it also puts scrollbars over the directory listing
and then suddently exits back to an xterm.

So links2 cannot handle that photo with 16MB RAM and 32MB swap.  zgv can. 
Both use the same libvga.so library.

I heard a lot of hard drive noise for a while before links2
unloaded itself, in both cases.  My theory is it ran out of
swap space.

To make a swap file:

cd / (not necessary, just so I can find the result easily)
dd if=/dev/zero of=swap48 bs=1024 count=48000
mkswap swap48
swapon swap48

I just tested with a 48MB swapfile and 16MB memory and links2
took about 30-40 seconds to display the large photo but eventually
it all worked.  When I am viewing the photo links2 uses 13% of RAM,
and if I switch to another terminal 13% (I can tell because I have
a dual-monitor system and I run top on the TTL monitor).  It just
seems to require a huge amount of memory to process the image before
it gets displayed.

If I try to display with links2 set to 1280x1024x256, links2 spends 50 sec 
making hard disk noises, using 78% of RAM, and then exits.

On exit
        Error:  Out of memory  (Malloc returned NULL)

800x600x256 is okay with 48MB swap file.
My laptops with 16-32MB RAM only display at 640 or 800 so no problem.

I got the message about waiting in queue and Links bookmarks in upper 
right and many pages of garbage with the SSL version in BL2 this time, 
even at 640 or 800, which suggests that it is some combination of low real 
memory and a very large executable causing this to happen.  With more 
memory I don't get this.


I never got this strange behavior with the smaller (2.8M instead of 3.5M)
nossl links2.

My bookmarks.html for links2 is 1337 bytes.  I don't know where links
is getting 189 pages of bookmarks.  Odd bug.

So the links2's that I compiled can be used in BL3 (with the proper 
links.cfg taken from your links2) but it helps to have at least 48MB swap 
space if you don't have 32MB or more of real memory and want to look at 
photos like mine (which is twice 1280 in width).  And don't worry about 
strange messages or garbage on the screen.


BL3: I set Xvesa to 640x480.  The 1.5MB photo was created by pasting 
together six small 1280x1024 photos. I have not tested xli on the big 
photo with 48MB swap space.

Opera was surprisingly fast in 16MB with swap file even on the
very large image.  So was xv.

When I ran Opera in BL3 'top' listed not Opera but '3' as taking
about 65% of RAM.

How does Firefox behave in 16MB with swap?

Sindi

> BTW, xli might have failed because you used a jpeg
> encoding that it didn't understand or perhaps a
> resolution/color depth that it was incapable of
> handling.  xli was written nearly 20 years ago
> so it can be overwhelmed by graphics beyond its
> expectations.
>
> Cheers,
> Steven