On Tue, 21 Mar 2006, Jim C. Nasby wrote: > On Tue, Mar 21, 2006 at 11:03:26PM +1200, Mark Kirkwood wrote: > > > > So its really all about accounting, in a sense - whether pages end up in > > the 'Buf' or 'Inactive' queue, they are still cached! > > So what's the difference between Buf and Active then? Just that active > means it's a code page, or that it's been directly mapped into a > processes memory (perhaps via mmap)? I don't think that Buf and Active are mutually exclusive. Try adding up Active, Inactive, Cache, Wired, Buf and Free - it'll come to more than your physical memory. Active gives an amount of physical memory. Buf gives an amount of kernel-space virtual memory which provide the kernel with a window on to pages in the other categories. In fact, I don't think that 'Buf' really belongs in the list as it doesn't represent a 'type' of page at all. -- Alex Hayward Seatbooker
