| Summary: | Free Memory Issues | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Product: | Gentoo Linux | Reporter: | mut80r <mut80r> |
| Component: | [OLD] Core system | Assignee: | Gentoo Linux bug wranglers <bug-wranglers> |
| Status: | RESOLVED INVALID | ||
| Severity: | major | ||
| Priority: | High | ||
| Version: | 2008.0 | ||
| Hardware: | x86 | ||
| OS: | Linux | ||
| Whiteboard: | |||
| Package list: | Runtime testing required: | --- | |
I believe you are misinterpreting the output of free. :) Your applications actually just use 114 MB, as you can see in the second line. The remainder are filesystem caches and buffers which the kernel allocates automatically. That means if an application needs more memory, the caches are reduced and the freed memory is available to your programs. So, there's nothing to worry about. See http://www.linuxhowtos.org/System/Linux%20Memory%20Management.htm for a more elaborate explanation. (In reply to comment #1) > I believe you are misinterpreting the output of free. :) > [...] > So, there's nothing to worry about. See > http://www.linuxhowtos.org/System/Linux%20Memory%20Management.htm for a more > elaborate explanation. Oh, I see. Hmm. Ok then. It was just a little worrying to be seeing just 12 megs of "free" RAM in top, and yeah. My bad. Thanks. |
I am having a memory issue. This has been happening for about a week or so now. I have even attempted to deactivate the swap (as the following output shows) and it has not changed. Additionally, there are only 69 or so tasks running, and not one of them is using more than 0.5% of my RAM (according to "top")... so this is probably in the kernel. ============================================= waste ~ # free -m total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 947 934 12 0 179 640 -/+ buffers/cache: 114 832 Swap: 0 0 0 waste ~ # emerge --info Portage 2.1.6.7 (default/linux/x86/2008.0, gcc-4.1.2, glibc-2.8_p20080602-r1, 2.6.27-gentoo-r10 i686) ================================================================= System uname: Linux-2.6.27-gentoo-r10-i686-VIA_Nehemiah-with-glibc2.0 Timestamp of tree: Sun, 26 Apr 2009 01:15:01 +0000 ccache version 2.4 [enabled] app-shells/bash: 3.2_p39 dev-lang/python: 2.4.4-r13, 2.5.4-r2 dev-python/pycrypto: 2.0.1-r8 dev-util/ccache: 2.4-r7 sys-apps/baselayout: 1.12.11.1 sys-apps/sandbox: 1.6-r2 sys-devel/autoconf: 2.63 sys-devel/automake: 1.10.2 sys-devel/binutils: 2.18-r3 sys-devel/gcc-config: 1.4.0-r4 sys-devel/libtool: 1.5.26 virtual/os-headers: 2.6.27-r2 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" CBUILD="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/ca-certificates.conf /etc/env.d /etc/gconf /etc/revdep-rebuild /etc/sandbox.d /etc/terminfo /etc/udev/rules.d" CXXFLAGS="-O2 -march=i686 -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="ccache distlocks fixpackages parallel-fetch protect-owned sandbox sfperms strict unmerge-orphans userfetch" GENTOO_MIRRORS="http://gentoo.virginmedia.com/ ftp://gentoo.virginmedia.com/sites/gentoo " LDFLAGS="-Wl,-O1" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_CONFIGROOT="/" PORTAGE_RSYNC_OPTS="--recursive --links --safe-links --perms --times --compress --force --whole-file --delete --stats --timeout=180 --exclude=/distfiles --exclude=/local --exclude=/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.europe.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="acl berkdb bzip2 cli cracklib crypt cups dri gdbm gpm iconv isdnlog midi mudflap ncurses nls nptl nptlonly openmp pam pcre perl pppd python readline reflection session spl ssl sysfs tcpd unicode x86 xorg zlib" ALSA_CARDS="ali5451 als4000 atiixp atiixp-modem bt87x ca0106 cmipci emu10k1 emu10k1x ens1370 ens1371 es1938 es1968 fm801 hda-intel intel8x0 intel8x0m maestro3 trident usb-audio via82xx via82xx-modem ymfpci" ALSA_PCM_PLUGINS="adpcm alaw asym copy dmix dshare dsnoop empty extplug file hooks iec958 ioplug ladspa lfloat linear meter mmap_emul mulaw multi null plug rate route share shm softvol" APACHE2_MODULES="actions alias auth_basic authn_alias authn_anon authn_dbm authn_default authn_file authz_dbm authz_default authz_groupfile authz_host authz_owner authz_user autoindex cache dav dav_fs dav_lock deflate dir disk_cache env expires ext_filter file_cache filter headers include info log_config logio mem_cache mime mime_magic negotiation rewrite setenvif speling status unique_id userdir usertrack vhost_alias" ELIBC="glibc" INPUT_DEVICES="keyboard mouse evdev" KERNEL="linux" LCD_DEVICES="bayrad cfontz cfontz633 glk hd44780 lb216 lcdm001 mtxorb ncurses text" USERLAND="GNU" VIDEO_CARDS="fbdev glint i810 intel mach64 mga neomagic nv r128 radeon savage sis tdfx trident vesa vga via vmware voodoo" Unset: CPPFLAGS, CTARGET, EMERGE_DEFAULT_OPTS, FFLAGS, INSTALL_MASK, LANG, LC_ALL, LINGUAS, MAKEOPTS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS, PORTAGE_COMPRESS_FLAGS, PORTAGE_RSYNC_EXTRA_OPTS, PORTDIR_OVERLAY waste ~ # uname -a Linux waste 2.6.27-gentoo-r10 #2 Wed Apr 22 01:46:32 BST 2009 i686 VIA Nehemiah CentaurHauls GNU/Linux waste ~ #