[lug] Linux Memory Usage

[Michael J. Hammel]

Thus spoke Jim Buzbee
> I know that the difference between the 8 Meg in the system and the 6132K
> reported is accounted for in the kernel image itself, but I can't seem to get
> anything to count up to 5629K.  When I run "top" and add up all of the %MEM
> column, I get around 60%.  Where is the rest?  The buffers (disk?) in the above
> free statement doesn't seem to account for all of it.  Anyone have any insight
> here? (I just know this is a FAQ somewhere... )

I'm not real good at this, but I do know that top will report what
/proc/mem tells it, and that includes memory currently being used as cache.
Applications are cached to speed up the time it takes to start them the
next time they are started, but the kernel will use that cached space if it
needs it.  So top can show all you memory in use after a big session with
the Gimp (for example), even though the kernel knows it's got a bunch of
free memory it can use if it needs to.

The question I can't answer is how do you find out the true available
space.  Kevin?  Chuck?  Sean?  Any ideas?
-- 
Michael J. Hammel           |  Last night I lay in bed looking up at the stars 
The Graphics Muse           |  in the sky and thought to myself - "Where the 
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org  |  hell is the ceiling???" -- Dilbert
http://www.graphics-muse.com