Bug in /dev/core

[pickles99]

Looking in the /dev/ folder I noticed a bug.

File "core" is reporting it's size as 140.7 Terrabytes.

""Type: Link to program crash data (application/x-core)"""
""Size: 140.7 TB (140,737,486,266,368 bytes)"""


When I log off and log back in with the LXDE desktop the Core file is not so silly big. Has anyone else noticed this?

[pickles99]

Looking at the properties of the "core" file, says its a link to "proc/kcore".

So I go into the "proc" folder to find kcore and looking at it's properties:

""unknown (application/octet-stream)""
140.7 TB (140,737,486,266,368 bytes)


I go into the hard drive properties, "File System"
267,181 items, totalling 140.7 TB
(some contents unreadable)

If I log out of Cinnamon and log in with KDE or LXDE, the Core file reports a normal size. So it can't be because I enabled ALPM power savings in the Kernel.

Can anyone else look at their file under Cinnamon and see if it reports a silly high size??

[pickles99]

According to the Internet "proc/kcore" is supposed to be the size of your system Ram used plus 4kb being virtualized.

Only have the problem when booted with Cinnamon as the desktop. No problem when booted under the other desktops.

The little voices in my head are telling me Intel and Toshiba might have 140 Terrabytes of hidden Ram on the system or Cinnamons got something wrong.

I found my lag problem.

[xenopeek]

The /proc/kcore is a virtual file and it is equal to the maximum size of RAM your Linux kernel could possibly address if you actually had that much RAM installed in your system.

On a 64 bit installation kcore is 128 TiB / 140.7 TB / 140,737,486,266,368 bytes (three times the same number, in different notation). This means nothing other than that the Linux kernel could address 128 TiB of RAM if you actually had that installed.

On a 32 bit installation kcore will probably be 4 GiB, or on a 32 bit PAE installation 64 GiB.

[pickles99]

Isn't it odd by logging out and logging in with a different desktop other than Cinnamon the size of kcore changes?

I deleted Linux Maya and installed Debian AMD64 XFCE Testing just to see a difference.

Reports kcore as:

Size= 128.0 TB (140,737,486,262,272 Bytes)

Debian AMD64 stable reports kcore as a more sane number. So it's the newer Kernel being used reporting the large size. I just thought it was odd it reports the size of this file in the Terabytes when this computer isn't supposed to have anywhere's near that.

It's even reporting the harddrive size as the same size as kcore's size. That's not cool.