Freeing Up Used Memory

zoso · 01-11-2005, 05:56 PM

Is there a command that will allow me to free some RAM? Thanks.

Tinkster · 01-11-2005, 06:10 PM

What is the problem you have with your ram?
Basically closing running processes will free
up ram for you...

Cheers,
Tink

twantrd · 01-11-2005, 06:12 PM

a command to free up ram does not exist in linux. You need to check which processes are using the most ram and configure/setup that process accordingly. Linux pretty much caches everything into ram anywayz for performance reasons so the real concern is swap (virtual memory). Check to see if you have enough swap with top, vmstat, etc...

If you don't, either buy more ram or create more swap.

-twantrd

zoso · 01-11-2005, 06:26 PM

Okay, thanks. I thought so. The RAM usage doesn't vary; it just keeps using more regardless of what I'm doing on the machine, and the usage won't drop. I was just wondering if there was some way to free up processes without closing individual things.

Tinkster · 01-11-2005, 06:48 PM

What does free normally look like? :)

Cheers,
Tink

zoso · 01-11-2005, 07:06 PM

Heh, less than 300 MB or so.

Tinkster · 01-11-2005, 07:17 PM

Heh... so what is the problem with that?

Copy and paste the output of free? :)

Cheers,
Tink

foo_bar_foo · 01-11-2005, 09:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by zoso
Okay, thanks. I thought so. The RAM usage doesn't vary; it just keeps using more regardless of what I'm doing on the machine, and the usage won't drop. I was just wondering if there was some way to free up processes without closing individual things.

the Linux kernel uses the RAM in a way designed to use it all up and keep it all used up all the time
for max speed advantage
but don't confuse that with no RAM is available
basically none of the RAM is ever really used up cause it's all virtual and 100% of processes have access to 100% of the RAM 100% of the time.

you are trying to think about it the way the winblows kernel works and forgetting winblows sucks.