From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Wed, 10 Apr 2002 18:04:00 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Wed, 10 Apr 2002 18:03:59 -0400 Received: from linuxfromscratch.org ([198.186.203.81]:57873 "EHLO linuxfromscratch.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Wed, 10 Apr 2002 18:03:58 -0400 Date: Wed, 10 Apr 2002 18:03:52 -0400 From: Gerard Beekmans To: "Herbert G. Fischer" Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Full RAM problem with IDE UDMA active Message-ID: <20020410220352.GA778@gwaihir.linuxfromscratch.org> In-Reply-To: <20020410213044.8661.qmail@hm60.locaweb.com.br> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Organization: Linux From Scratch Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Apr 10, 2002 at 06:30:44PM +0000, Herbert G. Fischer wrote: > When I do varios disk read-write operations (ex.: copying some ISO from one > partition to another), my RAM gets almost FULL. It keeps growing in usage > during the read-write operation. But when the operation finishes, the memory > keeps FULL, even after running a sync command. The swap isn't used in > this case. > > I think that UDMA uses a lot of memory without deallocing it. > > Look: > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 772368 645884 126484 0 85072 393896 > -/+ buffers/cache: 166916 605452 > Swap: 1044188 0 1044188 It may appear that you only have 126,484 KB free RAM, but that doesn't include the cached memory. The second line shows your actual free RAM which is 605,452 KB (roughly 590 MB free out of 750 MB or so RAM). This memory (cached) will be made available to the system when something needs it. -- Gerard Beekmans www.linuxfromscratch.org -*- If Linux doesn't have the solution, you have the wrong problem -*-