off-topic -> memory usage

[Gilles Espinasse]

Selon David Collier <from_busybox_maillist at dexdyne.com>:


> > > Here is what I see
> > >                          initial      after
> > >                          value        12 hours
> > >                          soon after
> > >                          power-on
> > >                          --------     --------
> > >         MemTotal:        30184 kB     30184 kB
> > >         MemFree:         10912 kB      2048 kB
> > >         Buffers:             0 kB         0 kB
> > >         Cached:           6184 kB     14580 kB

> > > I see the memfree has dropped from 11 to 2 megabytes - but I also
> > > see
> > > "cached"/"inactive" has taken up the slack.
> > >
> > > So the question is - how close is this box to the OOM of doom -
> > > is the inactive cached memory available for re-use if it's needed, or am
> > > I really 2M from the drop?
> > >
> > > Put it another way - what numbers above do I need to add/subtract
> > > to get
> > > a useful value for "available memory"
> >
memory used by programs is : MemTotal - MemFree - Buffers - Cached
memory used by cache is : Buffers + Cached
cache could be free if a program ask for memory

memfree usually tend to 5% in the long term as system allocate unused memory to
cache until that limit.

Gilles