Why am I using swap?
Mike McGrath
mmcgrath at iesabroad.org
Tue Aug 9 13:36:44 UTC 2005
> -----Original Message-----
> From: fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com
> [mailto:fedora-list-bounces at redhat.com] On Behalf Of Dan Track
> Sent: Tuesday, August 09, 2005 3:05 AM
> To: jvian10 at charter.net; For users of Fedora Core releases
> Subject: Re: Why am I using swap?
>
> On 8/8/05, Jeff Vian <jvian10 at charter.net> wrote:
> > On Mon, 2005-08-08 at 16:40 +0100, Dan Track wrote:
> > > HI
> > >
> > > I just rebooted my workstation, and I ran a "free -m". I realised
> > > that I'm already using swap even though I've got so much
> free ram.
> > > Anyone know why this is?
> > >
> > > free -m
> > > total used free shared
> buffers cached
> > > Mem: 1244 1227 17 0
> 37 636
> > ^^^^^^^^ What do you
> mean "so much
> > free ram". Whatever you have running is using almost 99% of your
> > memory and only 17 mb free. While that small amount free is
> normal on
> > my systems, the amount used is much higher than I routinely
> run. The
> > tiny amount of swap used (13 mb) is insignificant.
> >
> > > -/+ buffers/cache: 553 691
> > > Swap: 1993 13 1979
> > >
> >
> > This is mine after running for more than 5 days.
> > $ free -m
> > total used free shared buffers cached
> > Mem: 1011 991 19 0 13 703
> > -/+ buffers/cache: 274 736
> > Swap: 1023 0 1023
> >
> > >
>
> Hi
>
> Thanks for the reply. The problem is that the system has only
> been up for 2 minutes. With no additional services started
> apart from the basic set of strtup services found in a
> default install. I understand the linux kernel caches all the
> freely available memory in order to make use of it, but why
> is is swapping within two minutes of bootup when the line:
>
> -/+ buffers/cache: 553 691
>
> shows there is still 691 MB free?
>
> Additionally is it true that the linux kernel can only take
> up to a maximum of 800Mb for kernel usage while the rest is
> left for user space?
>
> Thanks
> Dan
>
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>
run a "ps aux"
It will return a:
USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND
root 1 0.0 0.1 1692 516 ? S Aug06 0:00 init [3]
root 2 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Aug06 0:00
[migration/0]
root 3 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN Aug06 0:00
[ksoftirqd/0]
root 4 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S Aug06 0:00
[migration/1]
root 5 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? SN Aug06 0:00
[ksoftirqd/1]
root 6 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< Aug06 0:00
[events/0]
root 7 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< Aug06 0:00
[events/1]
root 8 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< Aug06 0:00 [khelper]
root 9 0.0 0.0 0 0 ? S< Aug06 0:00 [kthread]
=====================^^^
That column could shed some light as to what's taking up all your
memory.
-Mike
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