[ale] "out of memory" error and dying processes

[David S. Jackson]

I'm getting terminating processes due to persistent out of memory
error:

Out of Memory: Killed process 9672 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 9674 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 9675 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 9676 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 9678 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 10359 (MozillaFirebird).
Out of Memory: Killed process 10836 (updatedb).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16343 (mozilla-bin).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16349 (mozilla-bin).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16350 (mozilla-bin).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16351 (mozilla-bin).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16353 (mozilla-bin).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16395 (gkrellm).
Out of Memory: Killed process 16361 (updatedb).

This system is an Athlon XP 1.5 Ghz with 512MB ram and 489940 swap.
Free says:

[dsj at scee ~]$ free
	    total       used       free    shared     buffers   cached
Mem:        256292     164516      91776   0   	      7684      81236
-/+ buffers/cache:      75596     180696
Swap:       489940      76280     413660


Any ideas on how to approach solving this problem?

TIA!

-- 
David S. Jackson                                dsj at dsj.net
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Whom computers would destroy, they must first drive mad.