Memory problems - activity monitor not launching

[SuAndMac]

Yesterday I had 58gb left on my hard drive. Today it is down to 56. Now I know I use memory intensive programs (creative suite and making very large ps files eg 1gb) but I'm pretty sure I haven't added 2gb worth of work in a day. Is there hidden files (like the old "temp" files on OS9 or printing files) that I don't know about and need to delete? Tried to have a look at the Activity Monitor but it won't launch - there is no preference for it and the console gives me a "tool is not setuid root - please repair the privileges" message.
I have a G5 1.6GHz, OS 10.3.3, 2 x 80gb hard drives running 1.25ram. At this rate I will run out of hard disk space in a month!

[HexMonkey]

The loss in available hard disk space is probably virtual memory swap files (these are stored in /var/vm, an invisible folder, but you shouldn't mess with this yourself). Don't worry about them, they are deleted whenever you restart.

As for the Activity Monitor problem, repairing permissions is likely to fix it. To do this, go to /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility, select your disk on the left, then click the "Repair Disk Permissions" button.

[robbieduncan]

Note that the OSX swap system is slightly unusual. It allocates swap in files of around 84Mb in size (strange number isn't it). If it needs more it allocates a new file. When it needs less it DOES NOT remove these files. If you reboot they get cleared down.


Edit: actually it's 80Mb

Second Edit: Use Disk Utility (in the Utilities Folder) to get Activity Monitor back.

[SuAndMac]

Thanks guys - I figured something like that. I have found however that all my apps use heaps more memory in osx - files saved in photoshop cs are much larger than in os9. So the old hidden "temp" files are not the same in x? :)