Bort pointed us to a new interesting feature in the linux kernel.
This is really good news, we'll be able to get input from the kernel on the fact that it is about to start doing things we don't like.
Looking at a random machine
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2017 1128 889 0 53 443
that's 443 Mb that an application that is aware of this new feature free its own share of.
It's not only Java applications that should be polling this device frequently ..
firefox, clock-applet, liferea, gnome-terminal, VirtualBox and evolution also might want to look at it .
Thank you for cleaning up your mess ! :)