kmc77 Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Is it normal for Mandrake to use over 220 meg of memory with no programs running. I'm new to Linux and only have 256 meg of mem installed in my computer. The listed system requirements and even sugested memory is much lower that what mine is using now. Anybody have any idea what is going on? If this is norm, then I guess I'll have to go get more memory. I appreciate any help on this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimdunn Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 It's perfectly normal, and does not mean you need extra memory. Linux will keep parts of the kernel, recent programs and libraries in memory until you need that memory for something else - such as running a new program. The kernel will then free up the memory you need. As long as your system is still responsive, and no excessive disk swapping (thrashing) is occurring there is no need for concern Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Is it normal for Mandrake to use over 220 meg of memory with no programs running. Pretty normal. Linux loves ram, but is very good at flushing out unused to make room as needed. sure there is programs (processes) running, open a terminal and run top or ps -auxf try and cut back on unneeded services at boot with the commands service and chkconfig or in mcc?System>DrakXServices Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iphitus Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Mandrake in particular tends to cache a lot of ram. Its normal. I ran mandrake on 160mb ram no problems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmc77 Posted February 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Thanks, that makes me feel better. I am a multitasking nutt so I've still noticed some slow down with two to three things going at once. Would addl mem help this at all? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zero0w Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Well, Mozilla is a resource hog, but others are right, what you see is cached memory, not used memory. In console, enter: $ free and you can see the actual used memory. Gkrellm will show actual memory consumption as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michel Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 (edited) I don't know the specifics, but liek told linux keeps programs that you used rece,tly in ram or somethiung like that. So, when you start those programs again they will load faster since (a part of them/ ) tehy are already in memory. Maybe they do it some other way, but I suppose the purpose it that programs load faster. Ram memory is faster than loading from secondary storage like harddisk, .... You know that I suppose... As long as you don't use too much swap it is ok. It is indeed normal that your swap is fully used. Your ram may also be used ofcourse ..that's what it is there for, but if it is used really a lot, then you maybe could thinkg of adding mroe ram, but I use 128 MB ram (900Mhz cpu) and use Mandrake 9.1 and it runs fine with me.. Ofcourse we maybe have different needs, althoufgh I can run things like eclipse ((big) java IDE= written in java I mean with JAVA IDE), mozilla, music and gaim at the same time sometimes.... When switching virtual desktops I maybe have to wait for mozilla to redraw or saw when I use my computer heavily, but that happens quick enough. Depends on the apps and how heavy they are. couple of secs or so I think, but that is under quite heavy use..for me anyway. The linux 2.6.x kernel has improved memory usage quite some I thought, maybe trying out that if you want more responsiveness or maybez even the multimedia-kernel ..but am not sure about the stability of it yet. So, looking at ram, is not raellly an indication you need ore memory, it is more an indication when you have "too" mcuh, when linux doesn't use a lot of it :). Edited February 8, 2004 by Michel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmc77 Posted February 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 tried "free" like zero mentioned and it showed 250mb mem being used and less than 2mb swap. Also just noticed that I have my swap file set at 2gig. Is that too much? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bvc Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 (edited) Also just noticed that I have my swap file set at 2gig. Is that too much? too much? Not if you don't need the space for something else. With 256mb RAM you won't need a swap over 500mb for sure and I've had a 200mb swap now for 6 months. It has gotten full a few times though with mem leak apps like mplayer and version or 2 of XFree86. 500mb is a good/safe amount for 256mb RAM Edited February 8, 2004 by bvc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
D'Espice Posted February 8, 2004 Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 (edited) kmc77: It's ok when free says that 200 MB are used, here's what the output of free should look like: [martin@Mandrake_AMD64 martin]$ free total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 1021432 1011128 10304 0 5532 583512 -/+ buffers/cache: 422084 599348 Swap: 488872 384 488488 As you can see, almost 1 gig of my RAM is used but the part to focus on is "cached". That's what actually is not used but cached hence free. Edited February 8, 2004 by D'Espice Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kmc77 Posted February 8, 2004 Author Report Share Posted February 8, 2004 Makes sense now. I appreciate all advise. I can stop worrying about it now. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aRTee Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 As long as free tells you that swap is used, add ram. If you can't add ram anymore, it's time for a new system; amd-64 systems should allow for over 64GB of ram. I just started to save money for that :P All kidding aside, from 256 to 512 you will likely get quite nice performance boost if you're a heavy multitasker. I start upon (auto) login the following programs (with .kde/Autostart) : evolution, xmms, opera, gkrellm 2x (one for my server, one for my workstation), bluefish, konqueror with java to my server vnc sessions (2 of those). (And since I autologin, I run 'xlock' as well, so basically I boot the machine, make some tea or grab my notes, and when I come back, presto, my desktop is ready and only needs my password to unlock and unleash..) On top of those programs, I usually also run quanta plus, and xine or mplayer, and sometimes xsane, kuickshow, gimp, OOo writer (or other OOo app), and I rarely close 'productivity' programs (anything but multimedia playback programs) -- and usually, no diskswap gets used. That's how it should be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted February 9, 2004 Report Share Posted February 9, 2004 I agree with aRTee on this. Linux LOVES memory... and uses it very well compared to Windows. I have 1GB and noSWAP.... I multitask heavily and everything is instant. Memory is cheap..... and easily the easiest way to add performance for multitasking... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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