Gentoo Archives: gentoo-user

From: Uwe Thiem <uwix@××××.na>
To: gentoo-user@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] More memory?
Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 11:44:23
Message-Id: 200412062236.31696.uwix@iway.na
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-user] More memory? by Grant
1 On Monday 06 December 2004 18:16, Grant wrote:
2
3 > I'm now using swap again for the first time since my last reboot.
4 > It's currently at 1036k, but that is guaranteed to keep increasing.
5 >
6 > Here's what I don't understand.
7 >
8 > total used free shared buffers cached
9 > Mem: 978 731 246 0 164 226
10 > -/+ buffers/cache: 340 637
11 > Swap: 494 1 493
12 >
13 > If I'm reading that right, I'm only *using* using 340MB. Why doesn't
14 > the system get rid of some of the inactive stuff in memory so I don't
15 > have to use more and more swap and slow down my system?
16
17 Not exactly. You are misinterpreting the output.
18
19 You are using about 341MB = (731 - 164 - 226) MB. About 1MB of your swap is
20 used for whatever reason. Maybe there was a short peak time (memory-wise)
21 when some piece of software got swapped out (actually, paged out) and hasn't
22 been used yet since.
23
24 If swap space usage goes up over time monitor your processes using tools like
25 top, ps and such to check which process eats up memory. Then do as I
26 originally suggested.
27
28 BTW, keep in mind that tools like top, ps, free,... are notoriously *wrong* on
29 linux. They give you an idea of memory usage but don't take their exact
30 numbers for truth. Question to the rest of the crowd: Did that change with
31 kernel 2.6?
32
33 Uwe
34
35 --
36 Alternative phrasing of the First Law of Thermodynamics:
37 If you eat it, and you don't burn it off, you'll sit on it.
38
39 http://www.uwix.iway.na (last updated: 20.06.2004)
40
41 --
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