top command in red hat linux
 

I am pretty new to linux and i have a memory question.

When i run a top command i get the following memory stats:

Mem: 2058632K av, 1792912K used, 265720K free, 16008K shrd,
22192K buff
Swap: 2097136K av, 0K used, 2097136K free 621860K cached

I have 2GB of ram but on 265 MB is free. But 621 MB is cached ? Is this good ? Can I install other programs that take about 300 MB of ram and still have memeory free ?

My cached memery is increasing every day ? Any help will be highly appreciated.
Thanks
tandonc

Memory usage like this in Linux is normal. Eventually it will fill up all the way as it stores and caches, not like Windows that just releases it when done. This makes RAM and memory usage more effecient in Linux and Unix bases OS's, compared to Windows.

What's the point in have free RAM, you bought it to it will be used right, not just sit there doing nothing?? ;)

Thanks so much for the helpful response.

tandonc