System "hangs" / "freezes"

[Primoz]

I have experienced many system freezes lately mostly in this combination:
Amarok Firefox Avant Windows Navigator and sometimes Open Office. I also habe compiz fusion enabled
But I have 2Gb of RAM, so I think I shouldn't experience the freezes so often. They started few days ago after I updated to KDE404, but are not specific to it, they also happen in KDE 3.5.9.
My 2gb RAM is made up from 2x 512 and 1x 1gb. 512 are quite old.
How can I have always overview over the ram consumption? I thinking superkaramba, but don't know which monitor is the best. Which do you use / recommend? Note that I have 1 core processor, so i don't need any dual processor monitors that are possible to install through superkaramba.
Is there any other way to overview your system other than system guard. I can get it into the panel, but cant seem to add RAM overview to it. can this be done.
Thanks for your answers.

[cantab]

Re: System "hangs" / "freezes"

If you're getting seeming random freezes it's unlikely to be due to low memory. Rather the memory might be faulty. The installation CD should have a memory tester (memtest86). Run that and see if it turns up any errors. Be aware it seems to take quite a long time.

If the RAM is faulty, I think it's possible to make Linux not use the bad 'blocks', thus retaining use of most of it. http://rick.vanrein.org/linux/badram/

Otherwise, maybe a driver issue. Or possibly a system file has got corrupted. If you can identify the file responsible, reinstalling the package should fix it.

But as for monitoring your system, system guard should work, I don't know why it doesn't...
Only other thing I know is the command free at the console.

free
to get a one-time listing

free -s #
to update every # seconds. use Ctrl+C to stop.

watch -n # free
similar, but will display differently.