slow ubuntu11.10
 

how would i determine that my randum access memory is fully utilised. it seems my ubuntu11.10 is slow and not using much of my RAM which has 6gigs.

Is there another explanation what causes my computer to slow? thanks

I am not too sure as to what you mean - are you saying that the OS swaps excessively? If that's the case, to experiment you can turn swap off completely with:

If you see an improvement, you can then adjust kernel swappiness in /etc/sysctl.conf (since ordinarily you do want to have swap on for the times when you actually run out of RAM):

The lower the value, the less kernel swaps. Ubuntu's default is 50 or 60.

Giving any advice without knowing the cause is somewhat pointless.

So we need much more information from you:
1. Post the output of the following commands:2. What machine are you running Ubuntu on, give hardware specs please. Do you have it installed natively, is it running in a virtual machine or do you run it from a Live-CD/-USB?
3. Which part exactly is slow, graphics output, disk access, launching programs, ... . Be as exact as you can.

Checkout these pages:

http://www.linuxatemyram.com/
http://www.linuxatemyram.com/play.html
http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2770

Wow, this article is from 1994 and the system he uses in his examples has 7MB of RAM! 7MB! So cool.

Hey,

Sorry, my mistake...

Why a mistake? I loved it.

Are you sure? Really?