Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

[oshunluvr]

Did a random mem check at the cli and got:

total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 8194604 8111728 82876 0 184868 6907064
-/+ buffers/cache: 1019796 7174808
Swap: 4208864 0 4208864

8 gig's ram used! I wasn't even running anything!!!

Ran top:

top - 11:15:21 up 1 day, 10:36, 2 users, load average: 0.52, 0.53, 0.53
Tasks: 205 total, 1 running, 202 sleeping, 0 stopped, 2 zombie
Cpu(s): 4.1%us, 2.2%sy, 0.0%ni, 93.5%id, 0.0%wa, 0.1%hi, 0.0%si, 0.0%st
Mem: 8194604k total, 8123140k used, 71464k free, 184868k buffers
Swap: 4208864k total, 0k used, 4208864k free, 6907060k cached

Then I quit amarok, skype, bluetooth, kopete and got back about 300000k.

Logged out back in - logged out restart kdm - same results.

Then I ran ksysguard. I totaled up all ram reported being used and it was about 1 gb. Switched to system monitor and it shows .97gb ram used.

Weird... BTW the system seems fine - not swapping or anything.

I guess ksysguard uses a different tool to check mem use and the one that top/free/htop use is borked? Yesterday - free looked mormal.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

cat /proc/meminfo shows:

MemTotal:    8194604 kB
MemFree:      95100 kB
Buffers:     184868 kB
Cached:     6907068 kB
SwapCached:      0 kB
Active:     3947548 kB
Inactive:    3705200 kB
Active(anon):   474164 kB
Inactive(anon):  87596 kB
Active(file):  3473384 kB
Inactive(file): 3617604 kB
Unevictable:      0 kB
Mlocked:        0 kB
SwapTotal:    4208864 kB
SwapFree:    4208864 kB
Dirty:        528 kB
Writeback:       0 kB
AnonPages:    560808 kB
Mapped:      186652 kB
Shmem:        952 kB
Slab:       193228 kB
SReclaimable:   168640 kB
SUnreclaim:    24588 kB
KernelStack:    3048 kB
PageTables:    21128 kB
NFS_Unstable:     0 kB
Bounce:        0 kB
WritebackTmp:     0 kB
CommitLimit:   8306164 kB
Committed_AS:  1794260 kB
VmallocTotal:  34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed:   102040 kB
VmallocChunk:  34359615996 kB
HardwareCorrupted:   0 kB
HugePages_Total:    0
HugePages_Free:    0
HugePages_Rsvd:    0
HugePages_Surp:    0
Hugepagesize:    2048 kB
DirectMap4k:   230912 kB
DirectMap2M:   8157184 kB

Seems Cached: 6907068 kB is the culprit?

[dibl]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

I'm not sure "culprit" is the operative term -- cached memory is immediately released if it is needed for applications. Here's a good description of Linux memory management:

http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

[oshunluvr]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

Really - I just thought it was odd to see so much ram reported used by "free" when it clearly was not. Obviously, I didn't look at the "buffers/cache" line...

I just have to adjust my eyes a bit

[toad]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

Only free RAM is wasted RAM

[oshunluvr]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

totally!

Hey - maybe I should add a few more gig's

[toad]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

Time to create a ramdisk!

[GreyGeek]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

....
I just have to adjust my eyes a bit

That pic to the left is probably why you didn't notice the buffers/cache info. Understandable oversight!

[oshunluvr]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

No doubt! She can be distracting...

For some reason, she can't understand why watching her doing house work is my favorite pastime! lol

[GreyGeek]

Re: Memory reported totally used by top free, not ksysguard

No doubt! She can be distracting...

For some reason, she can't understand why watching her doing house work is my favorite pastime! lol

They just can't understand us, no matter how hard they try. Poor things...