Why linux eat so much RAM

Hello world!

I have RedHat 7.3 on AMD K7 with 256 RAM box.

The question is:

When X is started, about 3/4 of the RAM is used.
When BMRT render launched, I almost have no free RAM.

WHY linux eat so much RAM, and is there any way to free some of them?

Why do you need to free so much RAM? It means 'tasty'.

This is asked all the time. It loads as much as it can into RAM to utilize it. Why have so much RAM if its not going to be used ? Try searching the forums here, as this is asked and answered all the time. But don't worry, its normal to have all the RAM used up. Its when your swap space fills up as well, you should worry.

memory management is a pretty stick o/s topic - it's not easy to understand, implement, or quickly explain. but, as tricky said, linux uses up as much RAM as possible because, basically, it's there to be used. the more RAM used, the less harddrive used - and that's a good thing.

linux memory management at one point had a reputation for being pretty slow, and during the early-to-mid 2.4 kernels, a bit unstable. but, now that the flamefests on the kernel mailing list have smoldered a bit, the kernel hackers have uber-dissected the memory several different ways from about thirty different angles, the memory management for linux has gotten pretty damn good by any o/s standards.

it's just important to remember that free RAM isn't necessarily a good thing - it could mean that your resources aren't being used properly.

Ya i was wondering about that also, i have 512 MB, and i would be running nothing, and it would say it was using over 300 MB. Things also seem to take longer to load for me than in windows, like netscape and stuff. tThere doesnt seem to be as much lag while running things once they load though.

"running nothing" = False;

Unless you turn off your computer.

At all times, Linux kernel is on. Plus, misc modules. X, KDE, etc.

It's called EFFICIENT memory management. Why do you need free RAM? You are not running programs. The computer is. Let it worry about it. Sadly, the same can't be said for Windows 9x & ME, which at some point you WILL run out of RAM, or specifically, system resources to below 50%. Go on. And boom! Lagging. Losing graphics & icons. Freeze. And my stubborn friend always thought a hacker took over and wiped out Windows and reinstalled everything. W2K/XP is better in this regard. They use much more RAM and they elimiate one of the sys. res.

you can also check if you have any memory leaks with memtest, it's a cool little program that runs in a flash and really does throughly test your memory,