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#1 2011-09-04 14:36:44

briff
Member
From: Chicago
Registered: 2010-08-26
Posts: 18

Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

I'm running 64-bit Arch on a laptop with 4GB of memory. I was concerned when KInfocenter said I only had 6% of my memory free when I was running only a few programs. However, System Monitor says I'm only using 1.5GB. What could be causing this difference and which one is reliable?

Last edited by briff (2011-09-04 15:07:42)

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#2 2011-09-04 15:00:27

karol
Archivist
Registered: 2009-05-06
Posts: 25,440

Re: Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

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#3 2011-09-04 15:02:03

vcap
Member
Registered: 2009-09-10
Posts: 9

Re: Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

Presumably, it's because KInfocenter reports the actual amount of free memory, while System Monitor also considers the memory used for buffers and cache as free (on the account that they should be easy to free when applications need more memory).

'free -m' in a terminal will give you both numbers (the actual amount of free memory on the first line and the corrected for buffers/cache on the second line).

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#4 2011-09-04 15:05:49

briff
Member
From: Chicago
Registered: 2010-08-26
Posts: 18

Re: Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

[ben@myhost xorg.conf.d]$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3827       3709        118          0         67       1660
-/+ buffers/cache:       1981       1846
Swap:         6000          0       6000

Ok, that makes more sense, so Kinforcenter reports the actual usage and System Monitor reports the "-/+ buffers/cache?"

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#5 2011-09-04 15:07:16

briff
Member
From: Chicago
Registered: 2010-08-26
Posts: 18

Re: Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

Thanks guys

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#6 2011-09-04 15:12:26

tpolich
Member
Registered: 2009-08-07
Posts: 44

Re: Memory reporting is inconsistent [SOLVED]

If your interested in any more information here is a very quick overview of the kernel memory management

http://www.linuxhowtos.org/System/Linux … gement.htm

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