> 
> We have 2 sets of machines used for large memory intensive processing
> jobs.  Alphas running Digital Unix 4.0B and PentiumPro 200 running
> NetBSD 1.2.1.
> 
> All have 128Mbyte of phyiscal memory and 512Mbytes of swap.
> 
> We have noticed that several programs that run OK on the Digital Unix but
> fail due to lack of memory on NetBSD.
> 
> One of our researchers has noticed that the malloc routine on NetBSD
> appears have a large memory overhead. It is not yet clear if
> this is the cause of our problem but wondered if anyone could shed any
> light on the algorithm used by the malloc routine in this regard.

The default malloc() trades some memory for speed of small block allocation,
if you want it conversely, use -lgnumalloc .

-- 
Zdenek Salvet                                              salvet@ics.muni.cz 
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           If God had meant for us to be in the Army,
         we would have been born with green, baggy skin.