Found something that was a very alarming, and hopefully a member of the Kotlin Team can provide a go...

# kotlin-native

[napperley]

Found something that was a very alarming, and hopefully a member of the Kotlin Team can provide a good explanation why the RAM usage is high. I have two different versions of a Kotlin Native program, one targeting linuxX64, and the other targeting linuxArm32Hfp. The linuxX64 version uses significantly less RAM (at 6.9 MB) than the linuxArm32Hfp version (at 23 MB) 😱. The linuxArm32Hfp version uses over three times the amount of RAM that the linuxX64 version uses which is cause for huge concern.

Originally when I saw something similar occurring (with a different Kotlin Native program) I thought I must have made some major mistakes when developing the Kotlin Native program, however the pattern that is emerging suggests otherwise.

[napperley]

Here is a link to the project that will make it very easy to reproduce the issue: https://gitlab.com/embed-soft/efl-kt/samples/efl-hello/-/tree/mem-blowout

[Artyom Degtyarev [JB]]

We’ve made an issue to track this situation and post updates as soon as any of them come: https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/KT-48901.

[napperley]

One thing to note is that I have tested the linuxArm32Hfp version of the program with a Raspberry Pi 4 running Raspberry Pi OS (the version based on Debian 10). The program should run on a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3.

[napperley]

One key recommendation to make to the Kotlin team is to setup a Linux/Embedded Linux Device Lab to easily do testing/experimentation with Kotlin Native in real hardware environments.