[plug] Question about memory usage

[Tomasz Grzegurzko]

On 5/2/06, Bret Busby <bret at busby.net> wrote:
>
> Now that my system is not running XWindows,  I have run top, to check
> on the system.
>
> In the memory line, it shows:
> Mem: 762936k total
>       536004k used
>       226932k free
>       112788k buffers
>
> Or, those were the figures while I was writing this. The amount consumed
> by the buffers keeps increasing, as does the amount used. While I wrote
> that sentence, the buffers usage went up to 112888, and is now 112940.
>
> Is the system supposed to do this, and, to use so much memory, when it
> is not running any GUI?
>
> I am thinking that it is perhaps the system, and, not Firefox, that
> keeps increasingly consuming memory, until it runs out of memory and the
> system crashes.
>
> --
> Bret Busby
> Armadale
> West Australia
> ..............
>
> "So once you do know what the question actually is,
>   you'll know what the answer means."
> - Deep Thought,
>    Chapter 28 of
>    "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
>    A Trilogy In Four Parts",
>    written by Douglas Adams,
>    published by Pan Books, 1992
>
> ....................................................
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>

Linux is very nice to memory in that it actually _uses_ it. 500MB of
memory free is wasted 100%, you may as well cache stuff in free
memory, if you ever need it again, BANG there it is. If you need to
run a big program, and it doesn't fit in "free" memory, it uses
buffers. Don't worry, its fine!