Re: Freeing up lost memory
On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 04:48:05PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > But still, all my precious RAM is nowhere to be seen: > > total used free sharedbuffers cached > Mem:513464 359332 154132 0 6332 131384 > -/+ buffers/cache: 221616 291848 > Swap: 264996 5192 259804 You misunderstand the output of the 'free' command. RAM listed in the "free" column is RAM that is completely unused. It is wasted money. You don't want it. RAM under the "cached" column is RAM that is not used by any application, but it is used by the kernel to cache things like recently open files. It keeps the file in memory so it doesn't need to access the slow disk when an application next needs the file. So, there's no need to reclaim memory. In fact, based on the output you pasted above, you have more memory than you can use. noah -- ___ | Web: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/ | PGP Public Key: http://web.morgul.net/~frodo/mail.html pgpDQl62kXDnG.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Freeing up lost memory
Lo, on Sunday, July 29, Damon Muller did write: > Quoth Osamu Aoki, > > On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 04:48:05PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > > > Hi gang, > > > > > > I foolishly left Opera 5 overnight last night. It seems that it leaks > > > memory like a sieve, as when I woke up this morning, I had only about > > > 50M of my 512M of RAM free. This is after a reboot last night (installed > > > 2.4.7-ac2), which pretty much nothing else running. > > > > Did you set lilo.conf right before reboot? > > > > append="mem=512M" > > Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. > > Linux sees the memory, but some unknown, unseen application seems to > have gobbled it all up, and I want it back. Killing that application should do the trick. I couldn't tell from your ps dump exactly which process has grabbed all the memory. To find this out, run top, then hit M (must be uppercase!) to sort your processes by memory usage. Then start killing the offending ones. Richard
Re: Freeing up lost memory
On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 06:42:54PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > Quoth Osamu Aoki, > > On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 04:48:05PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > > > Hi gang, > > > > > > I foolishly left Opera 5 overnight last night. It seems that it leaks > > > memory like a sieve, as when I woke up this morning, I had only about > > > 50M of my 512M of RAM free. This is after a reboot last night (installed > > > 2.4.7-ac2), which pretty much nothing else running. > > > > Did you set lilo.conf right before reboot? > > > > append="mem=512M" > > Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. > > Linux sees the memory, but some unknown, unseen application seems to > have gobbled it all up, and I want it back. It was probably some jave script at some site you visited that ate your memory up. Sometimes after closing out the browser the process is still going on. Check with "ps ax | grep opera" and make sure opera is dead. If not use "kill -12 pid" which probably won't work so "kill -9 pid" to finish the job. As to regaining your memory, a reboot should have killed the runaway process. One thing when using "free" to check your memory add the "buffers/cache" section to your "free" section as that will be used by programs if needed. If adding the two columns in "free" still doesn't look right run "top" and hit "shift + M". Take a look at what's eating your resources. hth, kent -- From seeing and seeing the seeing has become so exhausted First line of "The Panther" - R. M. Rilke
Re: Freeing up lost memory
Quoth Osamu Aoki, > On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 04:48:05PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > > Hi gang, > > > > I foolishly left Opera 5 overnight last night. It seems that it leaks > > memory like a sieve, as when I woke up this morning, I had only about > > 50M of my 512M of RAM free. This is after a reboot last night (installed > > 2.4.7-ac2), which pretty much nothing else running. > > Did you set lilo.conf right before reboot? > > append="mem=512M" Sorry, perhaps I was unclear. Linux sees the memory, but some unknown, unseen application seems to have gobbled it all up, and I want it back. cheers, damon -- Damon Muller :: Department of Criminology :: University of Melbourne It's not a sense of humor. It's a sense of irony disguised as one. -- Bruce Sterling
Re: Freeing up lost memory
On Sun, Jul 29, 2001 at 04:48:05PM +1000, Damon Muller wrote: > Hi gang, > > I foolishly left Opera 5 overnight last night. It seems that it leaks > memory like a sieve, as when I woke up this morning, I had only about > 50M of my 512M of RAM free. This is after a reboot last night (installed > 2.4.7-ac2), which pretty much nothing else running. Did you set lilo.conf right before reboot? append="mem=512M" -- ~\^o^/~~~ ~\^.^/~~~ ~\^*^/~~~ ~\^_^/~~~ ~\^+^/~~~ ~\^:^/~~~ ~\^v^/~~~ + Osamu Aoki <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, GnuPG-key: 1024D/D5DE453D + + My debian quick-reference, http://www.aokiconsulting.com/quick/+
