Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

george55 · 2011-12-28 12:02:56

I am trying to show the available RAM in the i3status bar. However, the manual only provides instructions on how to provide the available hard disk space, not RAM. Ideally, I show the total available RAM in MB or GB. As a newbie, I have two questions about this:

1. Is there a built-in way to display the available RAM in i3status?

2. If I need to use a script that gets the available RAM, what is the best way to do this? I have found several methods, but am wondering what is considered a good practice? For instance, I found the following:

cat /proc/meminfo | grep MemFree

From: http://blog.scoutapp.com/articles/2010/ … oc-meminfo

vmstat 1 2 | sed -n '$ p' | awk '{print $4}'

From: http://www.unix.com/solaris/25527-getti … l-ram.html

With the second script I obtain a number, which I figure is easier to divide and show as MB or GB. However, it appears to be slow. Is this the right way to do so?

Last edited by george55 (2012-12-30 19:43:03)

karol · 2011-12-28 12:47:57

awk '/MemFree/ {print $2}' /proc/meminfo

will give you a number (representing kB).

george55 · 2012-12-30 19:42:22

Excellent, thanks!

redowk · 2016-08-17 23:08:37

sorry for the necrobump but this can actually help someone!

awk can do a bit more work and get you the percentage of used or available memory:

# used memory
awk '/MemTotal/ {memtotal=$2}; /MemAvailable/ {memavail=$2}; END { printf("%.0f", (100- (memavail / memtotal * 100))) }' /proc/meminfo

# available memory
awk '/MemTotal/ {memtotal=$2}; /MemAvailable/ {memavail=$2}; END { printf("%.0f", memavail / memtotal * 100) }' /proc/meminfo

output will be a rounded up percentage of a hole number ex: 50%

Last edited by redowk (2016-08-17 23:11:01)

WorMzy · 2016-08-23 11:02:37

Thanks for sharing, redowk. However, I'm going to take this opportunity to close this old thread.

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#1 2011-12-28 12:02:56

Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

#2 2011-12-28 12:47:57

Re: Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

#3 2012-12-30 19:42:22

Re: Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

#4 2016-08-17 23:08:37

Re: Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

#5 2016-08-23 11:02:37

Re: Show free RAM in i3status [SOLVED]

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