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masenko703

07-15-2009 08:58 PM

newbie free question

Hi guyz,
Can someone explain the free command to me and show me how to tell if the RAM is being used completely.

[12:10pm]# free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 3010 2984 25 0 14 2317
-/+ buffers/cache: 652 2357
Swap: 1992 0 1992

Based on the above, show 2984 being used and 25 free but below that is -/+buffers/cache with 652 being used and 2357 being free? can anyone point me in the right direction as to what to look for? Thanks!!

stress_junkie

07-15-2009 09:04 PM

Code:

man free

jhwilliams

07-15-2009 09:19 PM

Yea, rtfm like the guy above said. But also:

Code:

jameson@salmon:~$free -m

            total      used      free    shared    buffers    cached

Mem:          3886      1720      2166          0        146        759

-/+ buffers/cache:        814      3071

Swap:        7632          0      7632

Those are the ones that matter, really. -m puts the values in megabytes. Linux caches stuff with free memory space and if you run out of memory for important stuff the caches get flushed. The man page doesn't really explain that.

masenko703

07-15-2009 10:35 PM

Thanks!!!

hadrix

07-16-2009 01:44 AM

i didnt notice that. thanks for the info!

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