memory usage

Scott J. Henson scotth at csee.wvu.edu
Mon Aug 1 04:11:56 UTC 2005


Charles Malespin wrote:

>I dont see how I can be using that much memory with 1 Gb available.  
>  
>

The issue is that the Linux kernel caches heavily.  This means that disk
reads and writes and any buffers are kept in memory as much as
possible.  So the longer your system runs the more memory the kernel
uses to cache stuff.  This is a good thing.  That means when you read
something a second time, it comes out of memory and not disk.  That
makes your system all around faster.  Also when an application needs
some more memory, the system flushes the cache to disk and freely gives
that memory to applications. 

So the fact that all of your memory is used is a good thing.  It means
that your system is using your ram effectively and making your system
faster than it might otherwise be. 




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