3 ms·
As pointed out below, quite a lot of that isn't in RAM - see "working set". There's a common noob complaint about "Linux using all my RAM!" where people are co
by pjc50 7mo ago
As pointed out below, quite a lot of that isn't in RAM - see "working set".
There's a common noob complaint about "Linux using all my RAM!" where people are confused about the headline free/buffers numbers. If there's a reasonable chance data could be used again soon it's better to leave it in RAM; if the RAM is needed for something else, the current contents will get paged out. Having a chunk of RAM be genuinely unallocated to anything is doing nothing for you.
- fluoridation 7mo agoNitpick: What you're describing is the disk cache. If a process requests more memory than is free, the OS will not page out pages used for the cache, it will simply either release them (if they're on the read cache) or flush them (if they're on the write cache).
- HappMacDonald 7mo agoOf course it's doing something for you. Room to defrag other areas of RAM, room to load something new without moving something else out of the way first. Your perspective sounds like the concept that space in a room does nothing for you until/unless you cram it full of hoarded items.
- Melatonic 7mo agoIf we're talking about a storage locker that's instantly reconfigurable then it is probably better to be approximately filling it. Why would anyone buy a locker 5x the size of their needs ?