Changes the memory allocator to use jemalloc to address memory leak issues

[bigbruno]

In the past few days, I tried several approaches to resolve memory leak issues in Nemo. I have a folder with 29,000 subfolders that I was using for testing. Scrolling quickly through this folder causes memory usage to exceed 1 GB.

Even after leaving the folder, the memory consumption remains high. However, when using jemalloc, switching to another folder brings memory usage back to normal, around 50 MB.

I used this folder with a huge number of subfolders to make testing easier, but folders with a thousand files are already sufficient to identify the issue.

[mtwebster]

Hi, this is very interesting, but I get the impression jemalloc is no longer actively maintained, perhaps there are other alternatives that would bring a similar benefit?

Also, does this have any performance cost?

For a quick check you can do:

NEMO_BENCHMARK_LOADING=1 nemo /path/to/lots/of/files

I usually also clear the disk cache first before I run this:

sync && echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

Thanks!

[leigh123linux]

Hi, this is very interesting, but I get the impression jemalloc is no longer actively maintained, perhaps there are other alternatives that would bring a similar benefit?

Maybe mimalloc, jemalloc is archived.

[bigbruno]

Hi, this is very interesting, but I get the impression jemalloc is no longer actively maintained, perhaps there are other alternatives that would bring a similar benefit?

Maybe mimalloc, jemalloc is archived.

I don't know why they keep the repository as archived, but it is constantly receiving updates, with the last updates made 4 days ago and in the Issues there is information that a new stable release should be released this semester.

[bigbruno]

Hi, this is very interesting, but I get the impression jemalloc is no longer actively maintained, perhaps there are other alternatives that would bring a similar benefit?

Also, does this have any performance cost?

For a quick check you can do:

NEMO_BENCHMARK_LOADING=1 nemo /path/to/lots/of/files

I usually also clear the disk cache first before I run this:

sync && echo 3 | sudo tee /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

Thanks!

Performance Benchmark Results

Test 1: Without changes or clean cache

Run	Nemo Startup Time	Folder Load Time	Idle Folder Load Time
1	5.694530s	5.495440s	5.665437s
2	6.274312s	6.070279s	6.353217s
3	5.990715s	5.764852s	6.031537s

Test 2: With JEMALLOC without clean cache

Run	Nemo Startup Time	Folder Load Time	Idle Folder Load Time
1	5.791489s	5.584155s	5.772395s
2	5.565344s	5.366286s	5.517763s
3	6.266869s	6.066841s	6.367481s

Test 3: Without changes and CLEAN cache

Run	Nemo Startup Time	Folder Load Time	Idle Folder Load Time
1	6.564831s	6.269911s	6.702799s
2	6.714676s	6.405399s	6.570017s
3	6.444123s	5.983357s	6.298770s

Test 4: With JEMALLOC and CLEAN cache

Run	Nemo Startup Time	Folder Load Time	Idle Folder Load Time
1	6.463416s	6.191013s	6.347061s
2	6.327779s	6.042773s	6.428277s
3	5.940651s	5.655058s	5.812127s

It seems to me that there is no significant difference in performance, but the small difference seems positive for Jemalloc.

[bigbruno]

Includes some changes to avoid compatibility issues.

When compiling nemo, if meson detects that jemalloc is installed, it will automatically use it in nemo, in addition to having the option to enable or disable it.