RH30: Virtual Mem shot by locale-archive

[Arijit Das]

I have RH3.0 installed in an AMD64 machine. 
 
In this system, when I look at the virtual address space mappings of a process (say a sleep process), I find that almost 80% of its virtual address space has been taken by a private copy of /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive mapped to its virtual address space by default. Check this:
 
     31396 KB    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
 
Total Virtual Memory = 38816 KB


On the other hand, when I look at the same info in a RH7.2 system, I see that a few small set of essential locale files have been mapped whose overall summed up size is around 236KB (way smaller than RH3.0)...Check this: 
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_IDENTIFICATION
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MEASUREMENT
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_TELEPHONE
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_ADDRESS
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_NAME
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_PAPER
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/SYS_LC_MESSAGES
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MONETARY
        24    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_COLLATE
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_TIME
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_NUMERIC
       172    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_CTYPE

This seems like a huge requirement of memory for each small process executed in the RH3.0 system and hence, shots up the memory requirement of the entire system because the mapped region /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive is privately mapped.
 
Question: 
 1) Is there any way by which I can instruct my RH3.0 system not to map the huge locale-archive file by default? Rather it should map the few small set of locale files, as mapped in RH7.2 system.
 2) If the answer of my previous question is yes (it is possible), then what will be the impact of doing that?
 
You can find the sample "sleep" commands below.
 
Thanks,
Arijit
 
RH3.0 on AMD64:
=============
vgamd126:arijit>sleep 400 &                                                                                     
[1] 19916
vgamd126:arijit>pmap 19916
 Size (KB)    Perm    Associated files (if any)                    
==========    ====    =============================================
        16    r-xp    /bin/sleep
         4    rw-p    /bin/sleep
       132    rwxp    
      1108    r-xp    /lib64/ld-2.3.2.so
         4    rw-p    /lib64/ld-2.3.2.so
         4    rw-p    
       540    r-xp    /lib64/tls/libm-2.3.2.so
      1024    ---p    /lib64/tls/libm-2.3.2.so
         4    rw-p    /lib64/tls/libm-2.3.2.so
         4    rw-p    
        36    r-xp    /lib64/tls/librtkaio-2.3.2.so
      1024    ---p    /lib64/tls/librtkaio-2.3.2.so
         4    rw-p    /lib64/tls/librtkaio-2.3.2.so
        64    rw-p    
      1260    r-xp    /lib64/tls/libc-2.3.2.so
      1024    ---p    /lib64/tls/libc-2.3.2.so
        20    rw-p    /lib64/tls/libc-2.3.2.so
        16    rw-p    
        60    r-xp    /lib64/tls/libpthread-0.60.so
      1024    ---p    /lib64/tls/libpthread-0.60.so
         4    rw-p    /lib64/tls/libpthread-0.60.so
        20    rw-p    
     31396    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/locale-archive
        24    rw-p    
Total Virtual Memory = 38816 KB
vgamd126:arijit>
 
 
RH7.2 in i686
==========
eurika120:arijit>sleep 400 &                                                                                            
[1] 11065
eurika120:arijit>pmap 11065
 Size (KB)    Perm    Associated files (if any)                    
==========    ====    =============================================
        12    r-xp    /bin/sleep
         4    rw-p    /bin/sleep
         8    rwxp    
        88    r-xp    /lib/ld-2.2.4.so
         4    rw-p    /lib/ld-2.2.4.so
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_IDENTIFICATION
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MEASUREMENT
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_TELEPHONE
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_ADDRESS
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_NAME
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_PAPER
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MESSAGES/SYS_LC_MESSAGES
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_MONETARY
        24    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_COLLATE
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_TIME
         4    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_NUMERIC
         4    rw-p    
       136    r-xp    /lib/i686/libm-2.2.4.so
         4    rw-p    /lib/i686/libm-2.2.4.so
        28    r-xp    /lib/librt-2.2.4.so
         4    rw-p    /lib/librt-2.2.4.so
        40    rw-p    
      1224    r-xp    /lib/i686/libc-2.2.4.so
        20    rw-p    /lib/i686/libc-2.2.4.so
        16    rw-p    
        52    r-xp    /lib/i686/libpthread-0.9.so
        32    rw-p    /lib/i686/libpthread-0.9.so
       172    r--p    /usr/lib/locale/en_US/LC_CTYPE
        24    rwxp    
Total Virtual Memory = 1936 KB
eurika120:arijit>


		
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