Re: Memory management 2GB not enough ?

[Alex Tabony <atabony ctpberk org>]

If I may jump in on this...

At 02:07 AM 2/20/01 -0500, you wrote:
> The question is: Do you end up using any swap or not?
>
> This gets discussed frequently... at least to the point about how Linux
> reports low numbers of free memory... but what is reported and what is
> actual are usually two different things. If you have 2GB of RAM and you
> don't actually use any swap, then I wouldn't worry. Linux will clean up
> the allocation tables as needed.

The question comes up, what does one do when swap is starting to be used?

I ask because I am having some odd memory usage problems here. After a 
fresh reboot I am seeing about 44MB of the 256 MB total as used. As times 
goes on, the cached and buffers grow. Now again I would not be worried but 
this is what free is reporting right now:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:        257660     253556       4104      33052      81252     149412
-/+ buffers/cache:      22892     234768
Swap:       530104       9612     520492

I have been observing the memory usage for the last few weeks, and this 
happens consistently. Over the matter of days, buffers and cache grow to 
fill and exceed the available memory (excepting a tiny amount).

This machine is working as a file/print share and as a mail server with pop 
access for about 20 clients. The process list shows nothing out of the 
ordinary. CPU usage is less than <5%.

Any ideas?

-Alex Tabony - atabony ctpberk org
510/849-2911 Voice/TTY
510/849-2968 Fax

Not all those who wander are lost. -jrrt