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From: Uwe Thiem <uwix@iway.na>
To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] More memory?
Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 22:36:31 +0200	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <200412062236.31696.uwix@iway.na> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <49bf44f104120608167e0a24a5@mail.gmail.com>

On Monday 06 December 2004 18:16, Grant wrote:

> I'm now using swap again for the first time since my last reboot.
> It's currently at 1036k, but that is guaranteed to keep increasing.
>
> Here's what I don't understand.
>
> total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
> Mem:           978        731        246          0        164        226
> -/+ buffers/cache:        340        637
> Swap:          494          1        493
>
> If I'm reading that right, I'm only *using* using 340MB.  Why doesn't
> the system get rid of some of the inactive stuff in memory so I don't
> have to use more and more swap and slow down my system?

Not exactly. You are misinterpreting the output.

You are using about 341MB = (731 - 164 - 226) MB. About 1MB of your swap is 
used for whatever reason. Maybe there was a short peak time (memory-wise) 
when some piece of software got swapped out (actually, paged out) and hasn't 
been used yet since.

If swap space usage goes up over time monitor your processes using tools like 
top, ps and such to check which process eats up memory. Then do as I 
originally suggested.

BTW, keep in mind that tools like top, ps, free,... are notoriously *wrong* on 
linux. They give you an idea of memory usage but don't take their exact 
numbers for truth. Question to the rest of the crowd: Did that change with 
kernel 2.6? 

Uwe

-- 
Alternative phrasing of the First Law of Thermodynamics:
If you eat it, and you don't burn it off, you'll sit on it.

http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004)

--
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list


  parent reply	other threads:[~2004-12-07 11:44 UTC|newest]

Thread overview: 10+ messages / expand[flat|nested]  mbox.gz  Atom feed  top
     [not found] <49bf44f104120306566d7e95cc@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found] ` <1102117306.10326.3.camel@sf.rout.dyndns.org>
     [not found]   ` <49bf44f10412031709175d496@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]     ` <20041204013213.GA30529@vicerveza.homeunix.net>
     [not found]       ` <49bf44f104120318296c48f892@mail.gmail.com>
2004-12-04 23:49         ` [gentoo-user] More memory? James Colannino
     [not found]         ` <200412040853.22010.uwix@iway.na>
     [not found]           ` <49bf44f104120410162d888ca2@mail.gmail.com>
     [not found]             ` <41B2059F.2010407@pnpitalia.it>
     [not found]               ` <49bf44f10412041057329eda1d@mail.gmail.com>
2004-12-05  1:33                 ` Bastian Balthazar Bux
2004-12-06 16:16           ` Grant
2004-12-06 17:20             ` Jerry McBride
2004-12-06 17:32             ` Billy
2004-12-06 20:36             ` Uwe Thiem [this message]
     [not found]     ` <cor8c2$pgv$1@sea.gmane.org>
2004-12-05  0:27       ` [gentoo-user] " Simon Windsor
2004-12-05  1:39         ` Grant
2004-12-05 12:21           ` Tim Igoe
2004-12-05 18:05             ` Grant

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