baffling memory usage

[Tim Redfern]

Hi I'm having an issue that is probably obvious to somebody here but its
baffling me..

I'm using python (2.5.1) on an embedded linux sytem system (kernel
2.6.19 I think) with only 32MB memory (for an art project).

My python code runs nicely when launched manually from a login shell, ps
shows its using 11MB or so of memory.

However, when I try to launch the same code from a startup script, it
uses over 22MB and the system grinds to a halt. Specifically its calling
a speech synthesis program (flite) from the os.system() function, which
requires 4-5MB, and this doesnt work from the startup script.

Why would python use twice as much memory when launched from a startup
script? Could it be related to the use of the os.system() function?

Thanks in advance,

Tim