Why Steam fails

[Ivan Gyurdiev]

Stefan Dösinger wrote:
> Hello,
>   
>> It doesn't seem to check the retval of the first alloc, which fails
>> about half of the time in
>> wine_anon_mmap (mmap() call) with ENOMEM. If the allocation succeeds,
>> Steam proceeds to run.
>> If it fails, Steam dies with the message above.
>>     
> I just started Steam 5 times without a single failure. I can't reproduce the 
> problem.
>   
I think I'm the only one with that problem... and I can't figure out 
what's wrong :(
>> Isn't this supposed to be a Virtual allocation...Why does it work one
>> time, and not the other...
>> The manpage for mmap() says ENOMEM can occur if the process exceeds its
>> allowed number of mappings.
>> Is this relevant?
>>     
> Maybe you should check your /etc/limits file. Your distro might have limited 
> the amount of memory a user may allocate.
>   

The limits are the default ones - all lines in that file are commented out.
> If you don't mind security risks, you could try to run Steam as root, and see 
> if the problem continues. But back up your MBR first ;
>   
I tries that with the exact same results...
Attempted mmap_anon of size 200MB...fails...Steam fails, with ENOMEM.