[techtalk] Memory Usage

[joey tsai]

Don't worry about it.

The free memory means that the kernel isn't using that RAM for anything
better; notice after you ran the program the buffers and caching went up.
So, if you try running that program again, you should notice (1) that it
starts up faster (since it's cached) and (2) if you ran free after quitting
the program the second time, your free memory should remain the same.

Also, from the Linux FAQ:

6.4 Free memory as reported by free keeps shrinking. 

The ``free'' figure printed by free doesn't include memory used as a disk
buffer cache--shown in the ``buffers'' column. If you want to know how much
memory is really free add the ``buffers'' amount to ``free''--newer
versions of free print an extra line with this info.

The disk buffer cache tends to grow soon after starting Linux up. As you
load more programs and use more files, the contents get cached. It will
stabilize after a while.

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Hope that helps,

	// jt