Re: How Red Hat Linux 6.0 handles memory. To me it looks like adisaster

[Rik van Riel <riel@nl.linux.org>]

On Fri, 7 Jan 2000, bis wrote:

> Whatever I do my free memory always shrinks.

This is an FAQ, somebody should document this...
(one of the other Linux-MM folks please)

- free memory is wasted memory, the Linux kernel will try
  to use system memory as effectively as possible
- Linux uses a unified memory pool, that means that all
  memory can be used for everything (kernel structures,
  buffers, cache or user memory)
- when there is free memory, the kernel will use it to
  cache data from disk
- when there is a shortage of memory, the kernel will
  free some of that cache and/or swap out programs

There is no memory leak or whatever going on, it's just the
kernel using memory to its fullest potential. It is true,
however, that the 2.2 memory reclamation algorithm is not
the most effective, that algorithm has improved a lot in
2.3 (and will be in kernel 2.4 when it comes out later this
year).

regards,

Rik
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