Subject: Re: 'free' and 'top' show the wrong amount of RAM
From: Stew Benedict (stewb@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Mar 03 2000 - 03:49:18 MST
I agree, I just happened to reboot this x86 recently and here's what dmesg
shows:
Memory: 257912k/262144k available (956k kernel code, 408k reserved, 2820k
data, 48k init)
Like Robert my top/free only show 257960. But heck it's only 4 meg, I
guess I'd be dating myself talking about my old 48K machine ;^)
Stew Benedict
On Thu, 2 Mar 2000, Jim Cole wrote:
> Hi - top and free display the total *available* memory, not the total
> physical memory. Memory used by the kernel (and possibly some other
> low level stuff) is not considered to be available by either of these
> programs. This probably accounts for what you are seeing.
>
> Jim
>
> Robert Fout's bits of Thu, 2 Mar 2000 translated to:
>
> >okay, i know everyone is excited about 1.2 coming out, but this is just
> >something I'm curious about: why 'free' and 'top' show the incorrect about
> >of RAM being in my machine (B&W G3/400 rev. 2)
> >
> >[rfout@bigblue rfout]$ free
> > total used free shared buffers cached
> >Mem: 127312 24844 102468 16608 940 14880
> >-/+ buffers/cache: 9024 118288
> >Swap: 131096 0 131096
> >
> >I have 128 of RAM, and 128 MB of swap (the amount of swap is shown okay, but
> >not RAM)
> >
> >127312/1024=124.328125
> >
> >I used RHL 6.1 a PIII/500 at school (with 64 MB of RAM) and 'free' on those
> >machines showed them as having ‰62 MB of RAM.
> >
> >Using
> >
> >What the heck is causing this.. is the ROM being stored in RAM... but that
> >wouldn't make sense on the PC?
> >
> >Bob
> >
> >---------------------------------------
> >"The knack to flying is learning how to
> >throw yourself at the ground and miss."
> >
> >>From "Life the Universe and Everything"
> >by Douglas Adams
> >
> >Robert Fout
> >MacOS Guru and MkLinux/Yellowdog Linux User
> >rfout@damien.edu
> >http://osx.damien.edu/rfout/
> >ICQ# 48433406
> >
> >
> >
>
>
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