I got a doubt with memory allocation in Linux

I am having 256 MB of RAM in my portable player and the linux kernel is given with parameter "MEM=110M" while booting,

Can any one explain what does that mean

Is it a ...

1) 110 M is given for Kernel memory and remaining 146 is for user-space memory

or 2) 110M is given for kernel & user-space and remaining can be configured as per requirement (may be... say, driver memory)

Also, when i start a application that has many malloc in it., at some point the malloc() function returns null., whereas i parallely checking through Telnet for the "free memory space" through "free" cmd, it returns 39 MB as unused (ie., free)

I am little confused now (may be i am not knowing the memory partitions), can any one explain on this

Thanks in advance

That means
3) Linux & applications get 110M, the remaining 146 lie inaccessible.



Cheers,
Tink

Thanks Tinkster,

Yes, i confirmed it by experiement; now i increased the MEM=128M and i DIDN'T found the malloc() fail.,


But still i wonder, eventhough the "free" shows 39 MB, why malloc was failed in the case of MEM=110M

The reason may be
1. Does "free" command shows something different or
2. Is the memory is got fragmented and not able to get the memory of my requested size..

Please clarify me. Thanks again

free generally shows something different from what a beginner would think he understands by looking at its output. But that isn't a factor in this case.

Fragmentation occurs in the virtual space, not physical and on a much bigger system running much bigger problems it could be a reason malloc fails when there is plenty of ram. Not so in this case.

Linux reserves part of the free memory for "more important" uses than ordinary user programs. On a system with very little ram (relative to whatever you're trying to run) more might be reserved that way than is beneficial. I'm not sure what parameters manage that feature.

Yes i thought, it shows the HEAP memory. but seems not. then.. how HEAP size alloted ? please explain and why my malloc() fails

Thanks johnsfine

,

Experts, can you please give your comments on this

Thanks

I would try starting without the "MEM=" parameter in place, because you probably don't need (or want) it at all.

The "boot loader," which loads Linux itself, ought to provide some way for you to override that parameter at startup-time, i.e. "just this once," so that you can see if it works for you.

I once worked with a little box that, for some reason, didn't report the memory-size correctly. This parameter allowed me to impose my knowledge of what the correct value should be.

Yes; now i got some more information, i could allocate memory without any issues by setting

80 on /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio

Further on googling and on some discussion
Since Kernel version 2.5.30 the values for

/proc/sys/vm/overcommit_memory

0 (default): as before: guess about how much overcommitment is reasonable,
1: never refuse any malloc(),
2: be precise about the overcommit - never commit a virtual address space larger than swap space plus a fraction overcommit_ratio of the physical memory.

Here /proc/sys/vm/overcommit_ratio (by default 50) is another user-settable parameter.

so out of my 110 MB 50 % is allocatable and remaining are for left "free" for other operations..(i guess for other processes too .. need to experiment on this)

hence by changing this to 80 %; now i am getting successive malloc() operation

(See also Documentation/vm/overcommit-accounting)

Thankyou all and Thanks to LQ, LinuxExchange.org