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asiobob
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Joined: 29 Oct 2003
Posts: 1375
Location: Bamboo Creek

PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 1:49 am    Post subject: memory [managment] problems? Reply with quote

Hello,

I have 1GB of ram but I'm concerned about memory usage. Should I be?
Code:

cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:      1033988 kB
MemFree:         30892 kB
Buffers:        131080 kB
Cached:         614604 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         716168 kB
Inactive:       179584 kB
HighTotal:      130992 kB
HighFree:          252 kB
LowTotal:       902996 kB
LowFree:         30640 kB
SwapTotal:      506036 kB
SwapFree:       506036 kB
Dirty:              92 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:         208648 kB
Slab:            94904 kB
Committed_AS:   331976 kB
PageTables:       1476 kB
VmallocTotal:   114680 kB
VmallocUsed:     37800 kB
VmallocChunk:    75660 kB


Apparently I only have 30mb free??

I'm running Kernel 2.6.2, gnome, evolution, 3 firebird windows, a console, xchat, gaim
As for services...

Code:

 rc-update -s
           alsasound | boot
                apmd |
            bootmisc | boot
             checkfs | boot
           checkroot | boot
               clock | boot
         consolefont | boot
         crypto-loop |
               cupsd |
          domainname |      default
              esound |
                 fam |
                famd |
       foldingathome |      default
                 gpm |
              hdparm |
            hostname | boot
            iptables |
             keymaps | boot
               local |      default nonetwork
          localmount | boot
             modules | boot
            net.eth0 |      default
              net.lo | boot
            net.ppp0 |
            netmount |      default
                nscd |
             numlock |
             portmap |
           rmnologin | boot
            rp-pppoe |
              rsyncd |
              serial | boot
                sshd |
              switch |
           syslog-ng |      default
             urandom | boot
                 xdm |      default
                 xfs |


Is there some where I can get a memory map? or are these figures normal? When I reboot and in gnome I'm running at only 250ish MB but I'm fearing memory is not being released.

[/code]
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PowerFactor
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PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

That info includes the filesystem cache which normally takes nearly all the physical ram avalable, but is freed whenever the system needs it. Run the "free" command and look at the second line, that tells the real story. From the info you posted you have about 776mb free.(free + buffers + cache)

Last edited by PowerFactor on Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:14 am; edited 1 time in total
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k9
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Joined: 28 Sep 2003
Posts: 160
Location: Salt Lake City, USA

PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Linux will use as much memory as it can to cache things such as data from the hard drive. If the kernel doesn't use as much of the memory as it can (regardless of what you are doing), you will have a slower machine. There is discussion of this in many threads in this forum.

Example:

Code:
$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           503        352        151          0         13        119
-/+ buffers/cache:        218        284
Swap:          980         32        947


From all I can tell, the correct way to interpret this is that I have 151MB actually free, but if I ignore the spaced used by caching, I have 284MB free. New programs I start will first eat away at that 151MB but if I get close to filling all of that up, parts of the cache will be dumped to make more space.

Note the large numbers in your Buffers and Cached lines in meminfo. Those are things loaded into memory to hopefully speed things up, but if you load more programs, the kernel will simply stop caching so much.
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asiobob
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Location: Bamboo Creek

PostPosted: Thu Feb 12, 2004 2:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

ahh that makes sense :)

Thanks for yoru responses
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