Re: [SLUG] Kernel Memory Question

From: Norbert Cartagena (niccademous@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Apr 10 2001 - 14:02:50 EDT


> ----------
> >From: Ed Centanni <ecentan1@tampabay.rr.com>
> >To: slug@nks.net
> >Subject: Re: [SLUG] Kernel Memory Question
> >Date: Tue, Apr 10, 2001, 7:52 AM
> >

> > Here it is:
> >
> > total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
> > Mem: 327245824 317763584 9482240 0 51363840 67473408
> > Swap: 139821056 1118208 138702848
> > MemTotal: 319576 kB
> > MemFree: 9260 kB
> > MemShared: 0 kB
> > Buffers: 50160 kB
> > Cached: 65892 kB
> > Active: 29384 kB
> > Inact_dirty: 83756 kB
> > Inact_clean: 2912 kB
> > Inact_target: 76 kB
> > HighTotal: 0 kB
> > HighFree: 0 kB
> > LowTotal: 319576 kB
> > LowFree: 9260 kB
> > SwapTotal: 136544 kB
> > SwapFree: 135452 kB
> >
> > The Inact_dirty was higher before I did a few experiments and reduced
> > it. The experiments confirmed the information I got from the links.
> > What's interesting is that large numbers in this class of memory
> > shouldn't show up on systems where RAM is low enough to causing
> > swapping. Only systems with "RAM to burn" will have significant numbers
> > in this class. One could consider it a symption of "too much RAM". It
> > also shows up a bug in xosview that shows more memory being used as
> > "user or share" under such conditions than is true.
> >
> > The way this all started is that I upgraded the RAM on my system from 64
> > Meg to 320. After being up 24 hours or so xosview reported that most of
> > my memory (2/3) was being used by "user/share" programs and libraries
> > and didn't change after I logged off and back on to release all loaded
> > programs and shared libraries I use. Some kind of unknown executable
> > appeared to be hogging almost 100Meg of RAM. Fearing a crack I started
> > to investigate memory usage and thus this journey. It's really just
> > memory that used to be occupied by executables but hasn't yet been
> > reclaimed for re-use. The kernel delays reclaimation until the memory
> > is needed again.
> >
> > All's well except for misleading and simplistic info from xosview.
> >
> > Ed.
> >

The reason I asked to compare is because I was (oddly enough) looking at
mine too and got this (I have approximatelly 1/2 the RAM you do, a but
more than 1/2)

        total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 195186688 123957248 71229440 0 13533184 56029184
Swap: 213848064 0 213848064
MemTotal: 190612 kB
MemFree: 69560 kB
MemShared: 0 kB
Buffers: 13216 kB
Cached: 54716 kB
Active: 24352 kB
Inact_dirty: 43580 kB
Inact_clean: 0 kB
Inact_target: 48 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 190612 kB
LowFree: 69560 kB
SwapTotal: 208836 kB
SwapFree: 208836 kB

Now, I've been looking at some notes on the Kernel mailers about this
and noticed that I had a much bigger Inact_dirty number than the files I
kept lookng at. Thanks for the explanation ;)

Norb

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