On Wed, 5 May 2004, Yang Xiao wrote: > Hi list, > > I'm running Fedora Core 1 with 512 MB RAM and 1 Ghz CPU. > > I noticed that even without any apps running, the machine seems to be using > a lot of RAM and I can't figure out what and why. > > Here's the top output > > total 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% > Mem: 513292k av, 352408k used, 160884k free, 0k shrd, 106080k > buff > 139380k active, 83000k inactive > Swap: 1044216k av, 496k used, 1043720k free 112940k > cached [snip] > > > I suppose cached/buffered memory are "free" because free gives the following > output > > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 501 344 157 0 103 110 > -/+ buffers/cache: 130 371 > Swap: 1019 0 1019 > > but still, what's using 130 MB of RAM ? The 130 is buffers. Linux manages memory as needed so the amount used may appear large, but it just hasn't been freed yet (because there is no need to). All of that is a simplification, but it gives you the idea. Mark -- Every calendar's days are numbered.
