Memory, How is it Used?

[gnarly]

I was wondering if someone could either lead me to a link, or explain why after running for several days and I look at "top" my memory usage goes up. What I mean by that is after reboot (I have 1GB of ram) it says that about 380mb of ram is being used, after several days it will be up around 800-900mb.
It's not really a problem I would like to understand better why this happens.
I do have "BOINC" running, would this be the reason.? I usually close my mail, browser etc. if I leave the room for any lenght of time.
Many thanks.

[kubicle]

Re: Memory, How is it Used?

Maybe this thread can offer you some information on memory management in kubuntu (and linux in general):
http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/index.php?topic=7572.0

[penguin.ch]

Re: Memory, How is it Used?

Gnarly,

may only be a piece of the puzzle, but BOINC supports the option to leave it's project data ("application") in memory while suspended - which can sum up to several bytes (in case of CPDN far more than 100 MB, if I remember correctly).

HTH
Birdy

[gnarly]

Re: Memory, How is it Used?

Thanks all for the info. I will get to the link later this PM.

[WalmartSniperLX]

Re: Memory, How is it Used?

Thats because a lot of that memory that is being reported is cached to enable faster performance. Type in 'free -m' in a terminal and it should report how much ram is used total, and how much is cache. Subtract the cache from the total and that is how much ram is being used for resources.

[gnarly]

Re: Memory, How is it Used?

kubicle thanks for the link I read all the posts and that has helped alot.
I also found another link that was helpful.
caserio gave this link; http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=175419 this was also very informative.

Again thanks to all, I have a better understanding now of how my Linux system uses its memory. It certainly appears that it is more efficient than the redmond OS.