you could go here for a good explanation: http://home.earthlink.net/~jknapka/linux-mm/pagecache.html I hope, that is the right address, I'm too tired right now to think :) In short, linux uses lots of page caches, so that after you close a program, if you open it again, it will take less time to open it again (well, its does more than that, but that is a nice little explanation). As you can see from the "free" command and as someone else already said, you can subtract what free gives you as cache to what it gives you as being used. That will give you the "real" memory used. As I said before the cache memory is not always used, since you might not need again what it is stored in the cache. But if you need the memory, the cache is going to be cleared so that you can get the needed memory. Rigo ps. I hope I made sense, since as I said.. too tired to think right now.. --- Jeff Grossman <jeff@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > I never knew about the "free" command. But, I still > don't understand > how the system can start only using about 100M and > now it is using > almost all of the built in memory. And starting to > use swap space. > > total used free shared > buffers > cached > Mem: 513852 488336 25516 0 > 137064 > 227048 > -/+ buffers/cache: 124224 389628 > Swap: 650552 6708 643844 > __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com
