mcelroy, tim wrote:
Sorry, been up all night and maybe provided too much information or not the right information and only confused folks, tired I guess. When I say 'in use' I am referring to the 'used' column. Thanks all who have responded to this inquiry, I appreciate it.

Here's free from PROD001:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] kernel]# free -k -t
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:       7643536    6975772     667764          0     165496    5393396
-/+ buffers/cache:    1416880    6226656
Swap:      8185108       5208    8179900
Total:    15828644    6980980    8847664

On Linux (unlike most Unix systems), "used" includes both processes AND the kernel's file-system buffers, which means 
"used" will almost always be close to 100%.  Starting with a freshly-booted system, you can issue almost any command that 
scans files, and "used" will go up and STAY at nearly 100% of memory.  For example, reboot and try "tar cf - / 
>/dev/null" and you'll see the same sort of "used" numbers.

In My Humble Opinion, this is a mistake in Linux.  This confuses just about everyone the first time 
they see it (including me), because the file-system buffers are dynamic and will be relenquished by 
the kernel if another process needs memory.  On Unix systems, "used" means, "someone 
else is using it and you can't have it", which is what most of us really want to know.

Craig

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