Linux/Unix Command to find RAM size?

ssnkumar · 03-25-2004, 03:33 AM

Is there any single command to find out RAM size on the m/c?

-ssnkumar

Kovacs · 03-25-2004, 03:41 AM

cat /proc/meminfo on my machine.

ssnkumar · 03-25-2004, 04:38 AM

This prints out many other info also. But, I want only ram size.
So, is there any other command which returns only ram size?

-ssnkumar

Crashed_Again · 03-25-2004, 04:54 AM

dmesg | grep Memory

but that prints out other info as well. Are you using this in a script?

jkobrien · 03-25-2004, 04:58 AM

cat /proc/meminfo | awk 'match($1,"MemTotal") == 1 {print $2}'

But I don't know if the format of /proc/meminfo varies among distribution.

John

ssnkumar · 03-25-2004, 05:10 AM

Thanks for all the suggestions...
All these are trying to access proc file system info or from somewhere else and is printing on to the screen.
But, what I am asking for is a command (standard) which prints only the required info.
For example, to know the architecture of my computer I can use arch command. To know the hostname I can use that command.
In the same way, for ram size....?

-ssnkumar

snacky · 03-25-2004, 05:33 AM

There is no such command. jkobrien's suggestion works beautifully, though. I suggest you stick to it.

JZL240I-U · 03-25-2004, 06:01 AM

Code:

free

shows the usage of your RAM. I don't know whether an option exists to extract only the total amount physical memory.

Code:

man free

might help

.

ssnkumar · 03-25-2004, 06:47 AM

Thanks for the help guys.
All your suggestions are working fine on Linux.
I don't know if they work on other Linux flavors also (I think they will).

Thanks
ssnkumar

tibbst · 09-09-2009, 10:38 AM

Only about 4 years late, but for Googlers, like me...

There is in fact a command to show the memory hardware (even at the time this thread was still active). The command you were looking for was:

dmidecode

Amongst other info from the BIOS, it will show the Physical Memory Array with the maximum memory the system can hold, and then each slot, whether its empty or not.

Other systems evidently also include a command named 'lshw'. You'll have to use the webpage for lshw, though, because it's not on my systems.

thanx,
tRaV