GNU/Linux

… or why using Linux can be a pain, when you come from the BSD-world.

On BSD (and MacOSX and probable other UNIXes), if you want to track a program’s memory usage, you can simply issue the following in a CSHELL set time= ( 0 "%D KB avg / %K KB total / %M KB max" ) or just use /usr/bin/time’s l-parameter.

On GNU/Linux on the other hand, rusage as defined by POSIX is not completely implemented, so you cannot do this. A workaround is preloading /lib/libmemusage.so which plugs into your program’s memory allocation, keeps track of stuff and prints funky statistics in the end.

Here are the general components of the setup, as well as planned components. Fear not, most of everything that follows does not imply this setup and is generally usable. You don’t even need a server for the most part.

Server · acts as storage for local and remote access · handles maintenance jobs · plays music directly, remote controlled [planned] · runs FreeBSD and ZFS · more details in separate article