Answer by Sebastian for maximum memory which malloc can allocate

I know this thread is old, but for anyone willing to give it a try oneself, use this code snipped

#include <stdlib.h>

int main() {
int *p;
while(1) {
    int inc=1024*1024*sizeof(char);
    p=(int*) calloc(1,inc);
    if(!p) break;
    }
}

run

$ gcc memtest.c
$ ./a.out

upon running, this code fills up ones RAM until killed by the kernel. Using calloc instead of malloc to prevent "lazy evaluation". Ideas taken from this thread: Malloc Memory Questions

This code quickly filled my RAM (4Gb) and then in about 2 minutes my 20Gb swap partition before it died. 64bit Linux of course.