Linux chaos 2.1.20 #11 Mon Jan 13 18:11:13 EST 1997 i586
With a minumum system, i.e., init executes /bin/bash only and update
running...........
F UID PID PPID PRI NI SIZE RSS WCHAN STAT TTY TIME COMMAND
100 0 1 0 5 0 820 300 do_select S ? 0:06 init
40 0 2 1 0 0 0 0 bdflush SW ? 0:00 (kflushd)
40 0 3 1 -12 -12 0 0 kswapd SW< ? 0:00 (kswapd)
40 0 4 1 0 0 0 0 nfsiod SW ? 0:00 (nfsiod)
40 0 5 1 0 0 0 0 nfsiod SW ? 0:00 (nfsiod)
40 0 6 1 0 0 0 0 nfsiod SW ? 0:00 (nfsiod)
40 0 7 1 0 0 0 0 nfsiod SW ? 0:00 (nfsiod)
100000 0 8 1 0 0 1140 488 wait4 S ? 0:00 sh /etc/rc.d
140 0 16 1 15 0 800 284 sigsuspen S ? 0:00 update (bdfl
100 0 9 8 0 0 1156 620 wait4 S ? 0:00 /bin/bash
100000 0 26 9 14 0 876 412 R ? 0:00 ps -lax
This is the memory in use!
I don't understand how this can be true. I have 32 megabytes, but only
476k free????
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 31481856 30994432 487424 1372160 25575424 1110016
Swap: 74022912 0 74022912
MemTotal: 30744 kB
MemFree: 476 kB
MemShared: 1340 kB
Buffers: 24976 kB
Cached: 1084 kB
SwapTotal: 72288 kB
SwapFree: 72288 kB
If I unmount the root fs and kill update, I should not have anything
wasted in "buffers". Practically ALL the RAM is in "buffers", and it
STAYS there! Is this just an "accounting" problem, i.e., is "buffers"
really the RAM available to allocate to processes, or is "buffers"
something that the kernel keeps forever??
If "buffers" IS RAM available for processes, its name really should be
changed because it's scaring the hell out of me. Maybe "Available RAM"
or something like that. To me, a buffer is something used for data
storage and therefore is not available.
Anyway, If I run the usual network daemons for a day, log on a few times
to check my mail, etc., then kill all the daemons so that I have left
with exactly what I started with, there is so much memory in use that I
can't execute swapoff.
Where did it go??? The bits seem to be draining out onto the floor.
Cheers,
Dick Johnson
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Richard B. Johnson
Project Engineer
Analogic Corporation
Voice : (508) 977-3000 ext. 3754
Fax : (508) 532-6097
Modem : (508) 977-6870
Ftp : ftp@boneserver.analogic.com
Email : rjohnson@analogic.com, johnson@analogic.com
Penguin : Linux version 2.1.20 on an i586 machine (66.15 BogoMips).
Warning : It's hard to remain at the trailing edge of technology.
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