attack of the zombies

[Bakul Shah]

First of all, thanks for looking at this!

> To make sure there is no "garbage" somewhere:
>   - remove all linux ports
>   - remove /compat/linux/* (rm -rf)

I hope we can find a less drastic way to handle such
problems.  Anyway I did this.

>   - install what you need (only from ports)

# cd /usr/port/net/skype; make install

This resulted in fresh install of the following ports:
    skype-1.2.0.18_2
    linux_dri-6.5
    linux-xorg-libs-6.8.2_5
    linux-fontconfig-2.2.3_5
    linux-expat-1.95.8
    linux_base-fc-4_9

Then I fired up skype and logged in and now there are 28
zombies.  My guess is something with signals broke.  Next
I will try backing out just the stuff in /sys/compat/linux
and recompling/reloading linux.ko

> We are talking about i386, right? Please provide the output of "sysctl
> compat.linux" (osversion should be set to 2.4.2).

Correct.  Only the i386.

$ sysctl compat.linux
compat.linux.oss_version: 198144
compat.linux.osrelease: 2.4.2
compat.linux.osname: Linux

> > Also note that the old problem of linux-* programs gobbling
> > up lots of memory is still present.  For example, FreeBSD
> > opera uses 96MB while Linux opera on FreeBSD needs 236MB + 48
> > zombies to displaying exact same 24 pages (same session file
> > and *just* after starting!).
> >
> > Is this a known problem?  Am I doing something wrong?
> 
> This is not a known problem (at least not for 2.4.2 compatibility,
> which is the default in -current). For known problems have a look at
> http://wiki.freebsd.org/linux-kernel

Thanks!