Version:           0.7 (using KDE KDE 3.3.2)
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages
OS:                Linux

Following is a bug report from Debian user Richard Lamont (richard@lamont.me.uk), please CC him on any reponse if you need additional info.  Thanks.

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Today I took over 1000 photos with my Canon Powershot S60 (USB PTP class 
camera), each about 700 KB in size (jpg). Digikam quite happily got the 
thumbnails for all of these, so I tried to download all the full-size 
images from the 1GB flash card.

After a while the machine started thrashing horribly and it was 
impossible to switch virtual desktops. (The mouse cursor moved, 
jerkily, but that was my lot.) About 20 minutes later digikam died. 
(The machine then behaved OK.) It had downloaded about 400 pictures by 
then.

I started it again and looked at what was happening with top, and found 
that digikam was reserving memory of the same order of magnitude as the 
total size of the files downloaded. (After downloading about 130 
pictures it had hogged about an extra 100 MB of RAM.) Closing the 
camera window freed the memory.

The machine uses 512MB RAM and no swap. (Yes I know, but I'm just a 
clueless luser so I don't understand why changing from 256 RAM + 256 
swap to 512 RAM + 0 swap was a retrograde step. I'm going to stick my 
fingers in my ears and sing la la la until Linus explains this.) 

$ dpkg --status digikam
Package: digikam
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: graphics
Installed-Size: 8756
Maintainer: Paul Telford <pxt@debian.org>
Architecture: i386
Version: 0.7-3
Depends: kdelibs4 (>= 4:3.2.3), libc6 (>= 2.3.2.ds1-4), libgcc1 (>= 
1:3.4.1-3), libgdbm3, libgphoto2-2 (>= 2.1.4-8), libgphoto2-port0 (>= 
2.1.4-8), libimlib2, libjpeg62, libkexif0 (>= 0.1), libkipi0 (>= 0.1), 
libqt3c102-mt (>= 3:3.3.3), libstdc++5 (>= 1:3.3.4-1), libtiff4, 
libx11-6 | xlibs (>> 4.1.0), libimlib2-dev
Recommends: digikamimageplugins, kipi-plugins

ii  kdelibs4                              3.3.2-1
ii  libc6                                 2.3.2.ds1-20
ii  libgcc1                               3.4.3-6
ii  libgdbm3                              1.8.3-2 
ii  libgphoto2-2                          2.1.5-2
ii  libgphoto2-port0                      2.1.5-2
ii  libimlib2                             1.1.2-3 
ii  libjpeg62                             6b-9
ii  libkexif0                             0.1-2
ii  libkipi0                              0.1-2
ii  libqt3c102-mt                         3.3.3-7
ii  libstdc++5                            3.3.5-5
ii  libtiff4                              3.7.1-2
ii  libx11-6                              4.3.0.dfsg.1-10
ii  xlibs                                 4.3.0.dfsg.1-10
ii  libimlib2-dev                         1.1.2-3
un  digikamimageplugins                   <none>
un  kipi-plugins                          <none>

(I didn't know about the two recommended packages and have not tried 
installing them yet. KDE installed digikam, not me (IIRR)! I assume it 
isn't relevant to this bug. If it is, maybe this should be a 
dependancy, not a recommendation.)

Debian sarge
ii  kernel-image-2.6.8-1-k7               2.6.8-10
ii  libc6                                 2.3.2.ds1-20

I hope this info is useful. My apologies if it isn't.