Unable to Compile Drake in RelWithDebugInfo Mode Using Ninja

[liangfok]

Using a PC with 16 GB of RAM, I am unable to compile Drake using ninja in RelWithDebugInfo mode even when limiting the number of processes to 1:

$ cmake ../drake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=RelWithDebInfo -DDISABLE_MATLAB=ON
$ ninja -j1
...
FAILED: examples/Pendulum/CMakeFiles/runPendulumLQR.dir/runLQR.cpp.o 
/usr/lib/ccache/g++-4.9    -Igenerated -I/home/liang/dev/drake/drake/.. -Iexports -isystem /home/liang/dev/drake-build/install/include -Ilcmgen -isystem /usr/include/glib-2.0 -isystem /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/glib-2.0/include -isystem /home/liang/dev/drake-build/install/include/eigen3 -I/home/liang/dev/drake/drake/thirdParty/spruce/include -I/home/liang/dev/drake/drake/thirdParty/cimg -Werror=all -DGTEST_DONT_DEFINE_FAIL=1 -DGTEST_DONT_DEFINE_SUCCEED=1 -DGTEST_DONT_DEFINE_TEST=1 -Wno-sign-compare -O2 -g -DNDEBUG -fPIE   -std=gnu++11 -MMD -MT examples/Pendulum/CMakeFiles/runPendulumLQR.dir/runLQR.cpp.o -MF examples/Pendulum/CMakeFiles/runPendulumLQR.dir/runLQR.cpp.o.d -o examples/Pendulum/CMakeFiles/runPendulumLQR.dir/runLQR.cpp.o -c /home/liang/dev/drake/drake/examples/Pendulum/runLQR.cpp
virtual memory exhausted: Cannot allocate memory

I am, however, able to compile in Release mode:

$ cmake ../drake -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE:STRING=Release -DDISABLE_MATLAB=ON
$ ninja -j1
...
[146/146] Completed 'drake'

The problem described above appears to have arose after #2487 was merged.

[jwnimmer-tri]

Very likely a duplicate of #2074.

[david-german-tri]

I agree this is likely related to #2074, but @liangfok, virtual memory exhausted makes me wonder if your swap partition is unreasonably small.

[liangfok]

It looks like my swap size is about 1.5GB:

$ free -h
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           15G       5.3G        10G       341M       342M       2.1G
-/+ buffers/cache:       2.9G        12G
Swap:         1.4G       262M       1.1G

Is that unreasonably low?

[david-german-tri]

Terrifyingly, IMO. Mine is 31GB.

[liangfok]

OK I will up my swap size. Thanks.

[david-german-tri]

@liangfok Do you feel we can close this as a duplicate of #2074?

[liangfok]

Sure, to decrease your cognitive load, I will assume this is a duplicate of #2074. I will reopen it if I continue to run into a memory issue after #2074 is resolved.