Re: Memory, where's it going?

["Shaun" <mailinglists@unix-scripts.com>]

I understand the concept and why things are cached, i've just never seen it 
cache this much before.. usually on a machine with bearly anything running 
on it (like this one) it uses bearly any memory at all.  My concern is that 
with bearly anything running on it i already have dug into swap.

Thanks for the responce, i just wanted to make sure their wasnt some type of 
a memory bug.

~Shaun
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "DervishD" <lkml@dervishd.net>
To: "Shaun" <mailinglists@unix-scripts.com>
Cc: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 12:53 AM
Subject: Re: Memory, where's it going?


>    Hi Shaun :)
>
> * Shaun <mailinglists@unix-scripts.com> dixit:
>> I see that free shows that 7.7GB is cached and i'm not sure why so
>> much is cached.
>
>    Because free memory is a *waste* of memory. Why leaving unused
> memory when it can be used for caching? The kernel will (up to some
> extent, I suppose) try to use all free memory for caching if no app
> needs it.
>
>    If you have 8GB of memory, it's a bit difficult to fill it just
> with the running apps, so the kernel cleverly uses the rest for
> caching things so the system runs faster.
>
>    For example, I have 1GB of RAM, and even when I use X (seldom...)
> I never eat up more than, let's say, 500MB. So, I have another 500MB
> of memory unused: the kernel uses it as cache, and that makes my
> system run much faster (I noticed a speed increase when I switch from
> 512 to 1G).
>
>    Raúl Núñez de Arenas Coronado
>
> -- 
> Linux Registered User 88736 | http://www.dervishd.net
> http://www.pleyades.net & http://www.gotesdelluna.net
> It's my PC and I'll cry if I want to...
>