gdm consumes too much memory when unused

[Jérôme]

Binary package hint: gdm

The gdm processes are using 10MB while we are using the XFCE environment. Moreover GDM will not be used until the logout.

On my laptop it is 4% of my memory.

Is there no way to unload the program and keep only a tiny program loader which will load the full gdm feature when logging out ? I prefer an add-hoc unloading than a swap memory use.

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j@j-lt:~$ ps axlOv|grep -i gdm
4 0 1122 898 20 0 8736 3540 poll_s S ? 0:00 /usr/lib/gdm/gdm-simple-slave --display-id /org/gnome/DisplayManager/Display1
4 0 898 1 20 0 8804 3652 poll_s Ss ? 0:00 gdm-binary
4 0 1234 1122 20 0 8844 3048 poll_s S ? 0:00 /usr/lib/gdm/gdm-session-worker
4 0 1140 1122 20 0 26428 18084 ? Ss+ tty7 0:08 /usr/bin/X :0 -br -verbose -auth /var/run/gdm/auth-for-gdm-4fe52d/database -nolisten tcp vt7
j@j-lt:~$
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ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Mon Nov 2 14:57:18 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.10
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.3)
Package: gdm 2.28.1-0ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=fr_FR.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.31-14.48-generic
SourcePackage: gdm
Uname: Linux 2.6.31-14-generic i686
XsessionErrors:
 (xfce4-mixer-plugin:1348): libxfce4mixer-CRITICAL **: xfce_mixer_get_track: assertion `GST_IS_MIXER (card)' failed
 (polkit-gnome-authentication-agent-1:1353): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_once_init_leave: assertion `initialization_value != 0' failed
 (xfce4-terminal:1378): Terminal-WARNING **: Unable to load terminal preferences.
 (xfwm4:1328): Gdk-CRITICAL **: gdk_window_get_events: assertion `GDK_IS_WINDOW (window)' failed

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report. The issue is an upstream one and it would be nice if somebody having it could send the bug the to the people writting the software (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/GNOME)

[Jérôme (jerome-bouat)]

I filed a bug here:
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=600468

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

comment from the upstream maintainer:

"Much of that memory is very likely shared. I don't think we want to unload GDM
or anything like that."

bug was closed as won't fix there.