Ex-Microsoftie: Free Software Will Kill Redmond (ComputerWorld)

Ex-Microsoftie: Free Software Will Kill Redmond (ComputerWorld)

A process called gnome-panel eats up 512MB of the available RAM, so the damn thing swaps(!) with 2GB RAM.

It is well known that gnome-panel is a memory hog, but 512MB is of course not normal. It is very likely that you have way too many items on your panel(s), or that you are running a version that has a memory leak. Quite easy to fix, I guess.