Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
Hi all, I just read this thread so sorry if I missed something important. I agree with Anne and everybody in the different (and much better!) way that Linux handles memory compared to Windows. But I must also say that there is a bug in the enterprise kernel that comes with 9.2 (I think it is 2.4.22-10, but I am not sure). With that kernel in a computer with more than around 850Mb RAM, the kernel itself takes and never releases (as it should be, since kernel 2.4 is not preemptible) ALL memory above 850MB, as I could see in my computer with 2GB, and only around 800MB free. Upgrading to the latest kernel, solved the problem. The bug is documented in the bugs corrected (or something similar) messages that can be read when you start Mandrake Update in MCC, and look for a kernel update. I am sorry but I am not sitting at my computer now, so I cannot give more details... This problem may be affecting Steven, since he is running the enterprise kernel with 1GB RAM, and I think 360MB used memory after starting the computer is too high, or it may be not if he starts X ans several programs... Best regards and Happy New Year Pablo Vito Will reply later today. From, Steven From: Richard Urwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 14:28:02 + On Monday 29 Dec 2003 1:45 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. I assume that you mean right-click menu, or that you have a left- handed mouse, since there is no left click menu anywhere that I am aware of. Which terminal program are you using? konsole (the default KDE terminal) works fine here, it has a menu bar with copy and paste under the Edit entry, and right clicking gives me a context menu with copy and paste options. konsole is the only option on the K menu Terminals submenu. I found eterm didn't understand the Windows/KDE copy and paste methodology, but did understand the highlight-and-middle-click X methodology. And that caused a problem with some KDE apps that used only the KDE method. But eterm isn't installed as standard. xterm may suffer the same problem, but so far as I can see, that isn't installed as standard either. (Just for the record I agree with everyone's comments on your memory situation - you don't have a problem.) -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com _ Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House Home. http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx -- -- Pablo Vitoria Garcia Dpto. Química Inorgánica Universidad del País Vasco (UPV/EHU) Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
I will try to reply to the email the best I can. I thought the disk cache and the physical memory did not work together. If they do that would take up alot of space. There is still a problem though. The computer has 512 mb of memory and almost all of it is being used. Alot of programs are using 20mb to run. That is to much. Is there a way to fix the problem? I cannot get the copies of the programs because the terminal will not copy and paste and the when I try to open lilo.conf (not sure I am trying to open right) it states permision denied. From, Steven From: Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 14:08:54 + On Sunday 28 December 2003 12:43, et wrote: On Sunday 28 December 2003 08:39, Steven Nelson wrote: The computer states that I am using, physical memory is to high. I Steven, there are two issues here. First, when you had 1024MB RAM installed you should have been using the Enterprise kernel - built to correctly handle ram over around 850MB Second - linux handles memory very differently from windows, which tends to cause panic in newbies - I remember the feeling :-) In fact it uses every scrap of memory available to it as and whenit needs it. It is much better than windows though in detecting the need to let go of something when it needs to make space. Although it looks alarming I have never heard of anyone running into actual difficulty through memory use, assuming that they had enough installed to get a system running :-) HTH Anne -- Run top and copy/paste the summary lines at the top of the page. Anne also copy and paste the section from your /etc/lilo.conf that is the 'stanza' you are booting from. you can also find memtester and memtest86 on the cdroms As an example, Steven, compare the two sets below, first soon after I had re-booted (changed kernel) and then 3 hours later. top - 10:48:28 up 22 min, 3 users, load average: 0.06, 0.12, 0.17 Tasks: 94 total, 2 running, 92 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 5.6% user, 3.9% system, 0.0% nice, 90.5% idle Mem:511216k total, 317328k used, 193888k free,16640k buffers Swap: 771040k total,0k used, 771040k free, 156144k cached top - 14:05:39 up 3:39, 3 users, load average: 0.85, 0.47, 0.26 Tasks: 99 total, 2 running, 97 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 93.4% user, 6.6% system, 0.0% nice, 0.0% idle Mem:511216k total, 506216k used, 5000k free, 7428k buffers Swap: 771040k total, 5456k used, 765584k free, 304532k cached Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com _ Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House Home. http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Monday 29 Dec 2003 11:51 am, Steven Nelson wrote: I will try to reply to the email the best I can. I thought the disk cache and the physical memory did not work together. Yes they do. Where else could the disc cache be other than in memory? If they do that would take up alot of space. There is still a problem though. The computer has 512 mb of memory and almost all of it is being used. Good! If memory is not used it is wasted! Alot of programs are using 20mb to run. That is to much. Is there a way to fix the problem? So? Applications take as much memory as they need. Is your system running slow? Are you using lots of swap space? If not then there is no problem. I cannot get the copies of the programs because the terminal will not copy and paste Highlight with mouse to copy to clipboard. Press centre button/mouse wheel to paste. and the when I try to open lilo.conf (not sure I am trying to open right) it states permision denied. Do it as root. Alt+F2 will pull up a command box. Type kdesu konqueror in the box to get a root copy of konqueror. Linux is not Windows. Do not expect it be the same. Windows is rubbish at managing memory. Linux is good at it :-) derek From, Steven -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Monday 29 December 2003 11:51, Steven Nelson wrote: I will try to reply to the email the best I can. I thought the disk cache and the physical memory did not work together. If they do that would take up alot of space. What you are seeing is memory cache, not disk cache There is still a problem though. The computer has 512 mb of memory and almost all of it is being used. Alot of programs are using 20mb to run. That is to much. Is there a way to fix the problem? There is no problem, because cached memory usage is released whenever it is needed. I cannot get the copies of the programs because the terminal will not copy and paste To get a copy of lines on a terminal printout you have to use the linux way :-) That is, you sweep your mouse quickly accross the required text and release the button. This is put onto your clipboard (which can hold severl entries). To paste it you middle-click the destination. On a wheel mouse that's the wheel. On a two-button mouse it's usually both buttons together. and the when I try to open lilo.conf (not sure I am trying to open right) it states permision denied. You have to be root to write to it, but I would have expected you to be able to read from it (is this a feature of 9.2, folks?). Anyway, you can use the linux way - again, from a root console, type cat /etc/lilo.conf - then use the method described above. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
I was thinking the disk cache was on the hard drive. Are u sure it is in the memory? I know in alot of the Windows versions I have used there was settings where you could enable a cache and set the size of it. You might be confused or I might be but I thought when memory was not used it is waiting for applications to use it or for when you use the applications that would be already enabled and they need more memory. I didn't think applications should use that much of the memory. Almost all of the memory is gone because the applications are using it. If I run out of memory then I will not be able to use the computer correctly and it will freeze. Won't other applications need the memory? The swap space is not being used at all. That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. Is the Konquerer file you mentioned the same as the Lilo? Do I need to get both? I booted the enterprise kernel and it read the 1024mb of memory right. That helped with how much memory is being used, there is still around 360mb being used. I would think that is to much but if you are right about the programs using that much memory, I guess not. If it helps, the questions that are have are in the paragraph. Some of them do not have question marks at the end of them and are questions within a regular sentence. You should be able to understand the paragraph and what the questions are if you understand what is happening with the memory problem. From, Steven From: Derek Jennings [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 12:15:51 + On Monday 29 Dec 2003 11:51 am, Steven Nelson wrote: I will try to reply to the email the best I can. I thought the disk cache and the physical memory did not work together. Yes they do. Where else could the disc cache be other than in memory? If they do that would take up alot of space. There is still a problem though. The computer has 512 mb of memory and almost all of it is being used. Good! If memory is not used it is wasted! Alot of programs are using 20mb to run. That is to much. Is there a way to fix the problem? So? Applications take as much memory as they need. Is your system running slow? Are you using lots of swap space? If not then there is no problem. I cannot get the copies of the programs because the terminal will not copy and paste Highlight with mouse to copy to clipboard. Press centre button/mouse wheel to paste. and the when I try to open lilo.conf (not sure I am trying to open right) it states permision denied. Do it as root. Alt+F2 will pull up a command box. Type kdesu konqueror in the box to get a root copy of konqueror. Linux is not Windows. Do not expect it be the same. Windows is rubbish at managing memory. Linux is good at it :-) derek From, Steven -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com _ Get reliable dial-up Internet access now with our limited-time introductory offer. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: I was thinking the disk cache was on the hard drive. Are u sure it is in the memory? I know in alot of the Windows versions I have used there was settings where you could enable a cache and set the size of it. You might be confused or I might be but I thought when memory was not used it is waiting for applications to use it or for when you use the applications that would be already enabled and they need more memory. This is where linux and windows handle things quite differently. Windows sets aside a memory area, and once that's filled up it starts writing to disk cache. In linux, it sees memory rather like a pond that is fed by a stream. Water (data) can flow into it as long as it is not full, but when it runs out of space it simply lets some run away (least likely to be needed data) to make room for the new. If you have plenty of ram it will operate within that space for most of the time, barely touching your swap partition. That's what happens on mine (512MB). If it is really being worked hard, which is usually a short time, it will use the ram and the swap, but it will still handle it much more efficiently than windows does. It is a completely different system. I didn't think applications should use that much of the memory. Almost all of the memory is gone because the applications are using it. If I run out of memory then I will not be able to use the computer correctly and it will freeze. Believe me, it wont g My memory usage goes close to the 512MB within an hour or two of booting up, but I have run for weeks at a time and never had a problem caused by memory shortage. Won't other applications need the memory? Yes, and it will be released as necessary. The swap space is not being used at all. That shows that it is working well. That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. Is the Konquerer file you mentioned the same as the Lilo? Do I need to get both? I booted the enterprise kernel and it read the 1024mb of memory right. That helped with how much memory is being used, there is still around 360mb being used. I would think that is to much but if you are right about the programs using that much memory, I guess not. If it helps, the questions that are have are in the paragraph. Some of them do not have question marks at the end of them and are questions within a regular sentence. You should be able to understand the paragraph and what the questions are if you understand what is happening with the memory problem. Apart from that one bit, I understood your concerns. Believe me, I remember how difficult it is to come to terms with such a fundamental difference g. I'm glad that the enterprise kernel appears to be working well for you, and I hope that my explanations have made things clearer. I think your terminal question is a different thing, though, and it may help to start another thread with a subject directly relating to that, as others may be ignoring this thread, thinking that Derek and I are dealing with it. HTH Anne - -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/8DAjkFAvMr/nNX8RArpDAKCBFEVVIwaaIzktCEfMl5702MRCbACfbf1A 823UbxlHRtx7V24bPAFvGgw= =5Hsr -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On 12/29/2003 at 1:45 PM Anne Wilson wrote: -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: I was thinking the disk cache was on the hard drive. Are u sure it is in the memory? I know in alot of the Windows versions I have used there was settings where you could enable a cache and set the size of it. You might be confused or I might be but I thought when memory was not used it is waiting for applications to use it or for when you use the applications that would be already enabled and they need more memory. This is where linux and windows handle things quite differently. Windows sets aside a memory area, and once that's filled up it starts writing to disk cache. In linux, it sees memory rather like a pond that is fed by a stream. Water (data) can flow into it as long as it is not full, but when it runs out of space it simply lets some run away (least likely to be needed data) to make room for the new. If you have plenty of ram it will operate within that space for most of the time, barely touching your swap partition. That's what happens on mine (512MB). If it is really being worked hard, which is usually a short time, it will use the ram and the swap, but it will still handle it much more efficiently than windows does. It is a completely different system. I didn't think applications should use that much of the memory. Almost all of the memory is gone because the applications are using it. If I run out of memory then I will not be able to use the computer correctly and it will freeze. Believe me, it wont g My memory usage goes close to the 512MB within an hour or two of booting up, but I have run for weeks at a time and never had a problem caused by memory shortage. Won't other applications need the memory? Yes, and it will be released as necessary. The swap space is not being used at all. That shows that it is working well. That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. Is the Konquerer file you mentioned the same as the Lilo? Do I need to get both? I booted the enterprise kernel and it read the 1024mb of memory right. That helped with how much memory is being used, there is still around 360mb being used. I would think that is to much but if you are right about the programs using that much memory, I guess not. If it helps, the questions that are have are in the paragraph. Some of them do not have question marks at the end of them and are questions within a regular sentence. You should be able to understand the paragraph and what the questions are if you understand what is happening with the memory problem. Apart from that one bit, I understood your concerns. Believe me, I remember how difficult it is to come to terms with such a fundamental difference g. I'm glad that the enterprise kernel appears to be working well for you, and I hope that my explanations have made things clearer. I think your terminal question is a different thing, though, and it may help to start another thread with a subject directly relating to that, as others may be ignoring this thread, thinking that Derek and I are dealing with it. Anne *** REPLY SEPARATOR *** Steven; Anne's analogy is one of the most elegant ones I've seen in a long time! Makes me feel like I should get a straw hat and a fishin' pole and go lookin' fer some o' them danged ram catfish! g ! Whether Anne meant to or not, she's managed to hit on one of the most significant differences between Windows and Linux. Linux manages memory in a distinctly different manner than Windows. Microsoft's memory manager has always been a P.O.S. ( and I don't mean Point-of-Sale ! ), because it would essentially grab ram as needed by the various applications and services running on a PC or server. While that doesn't sound too bad, the problem was that it does a rotten job of managing and tracking the jobs sitting in ram, and also it sucks at returning that ram to an unused state, once the application or whatever has finished using it. In many instances, the Windows memory manager would also send 2 or more jobs to the exact same physical or virtual ram locations, thus causing a large percentage of the B.S.O.D.'s that sent many Linux users scrambling away from Microsoft product. Windows 2000 had the best memory manager of the lot, and even that one has been less than Stellar! I know dozens of Microsoft Net and Sys Admins that regularly reboot their servers in order to clean things up ( it's the easiest way to refresh the ram for them ), while most Linux users only reboot when there's a significant change made to their PC's or Servers, or
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Monday 29 Dec 2003 1:45 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. I assume that you mean right-click menu, or that you have a left-handed mouse, since there is no left click menu anywhere that I am aware of. Which terminal program are you using? konsole (the default KDE terminal) works fine here, it has a menu bar with copy and paste under the Edit entry, and right clicking gives me a context menu with copy and paste options. konsole is the only option on the K menu Terminals submenu. I found eterm didn't understand the Windows/KDE copy and paste methodology, but did understand the highlight-and-middle-click X methodology. And that caused a problem with some KDE apps that used only the KDE method. But eterm isn't installed as standard. xterm may suffer the same problem, but so far as I can see, that isn't installed as standard either. (Just for the record I agree with everyone's comments on your memory situation - you don't have a problem.) -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Monday 29 December 2003 02:28 pm, Richard Urwin wrote: On Monday 29 Dec 2003 1:45 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. I assume that you mean right-click menu, or that you have a left-handed mouse, since there is no left click menu anywhere that I am aware of. eterm has a regular menu at the top,,, at least my configuration does, it does left click to get menus. Which terminal program are you using? konsole (the default KDE terminal) works fine here, it has a menu bar with copy and paste under the Edit entry, and right clicking gives me a context menu with copy and paste options. konsole is the only option on the K menu Terminals submenu. I found eterm didn't understand the Windows/KDE copy and paste methodology, but did understand the highlight-and-middle-click X methodology. And that caused a problem with some KDE apps that used only the KDE method. But eterm isn't installed as standard. xterm may suffer the same problem, but so far as I can see, that isn't installed as standard either. (Just for the record I agree with everyone's comments on your memory situation - you don't have a problem.) Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
Will reply later today. From, Steven From: Richard Urwin [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Mon, 29 Dec 2003 14:28:02 + On Monday 29 Dec 2003 1:45 pm, Anne Wilson wrote: On Monday 29 December 2003 13:27, Steven Nelson wrote: That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. I assume that you mean right-click menu, or that you have a left-handed mouse, since there is no left click menu anywhere that I am aware of. Which terminal program are you using? konsole (the default KDE terminal) works fine here, it has a menu bar with copy and paste under the Edit entry, and right clicking gives me a context menu with copy and paste options. konsole is the only option on the K menu Terminals submenu. I found eterm didn't understand the Windows/KDE copy and paste methodology, but did understand the highlight-and-middle-click X methodology. And that caused a problem with some KDE apps that used only the KDE method. But eterm isn't installed as standard. xterm may suffer the same problem, but so far as I can see, that isn't installed as standard either. (Just for the record I agree with everyone's comments on your memory situation - you don't have a problem.) -- Richard Urwin Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com _ Make your home warm and cozy this winter with tips from MSN House Home. http://special.msn.com/home/warmhome.armx Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Monday 29 December 2003 6:45 am, Anne Wilson wrote: chomp That is the problem, on all of the terminals that are avaible with Mandrake 9.2 none of them will let the left click menu appear. When I used Mandrake 9.1 there was one terminal that had that feature, it is not with Mandrake 9.2. I'm not sure what you mean by this one, Seven, and since I don't use 9.2 I'll let someone else try to answer that. Since as far as I'm concerned the other questions were handled by Anne and others more than adequately I broad-axed them. The terminal however... If you don't have a tool bar at the top of the terminal you probably don't have anything but the rxvt terminal installed. There are numerous threads available in the archives dealing with the changes in KDE, and what you need to do to install the rest of the KDE apps that were a once huge bundle, but have been split into package groups for 9.2. For complete mailing list archives for this list, navigate to: http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=mandrake-newbier=1w=2 There are others around the World Wide Wait, but that one never seems to break. If you want to use Konsole install it. urpmi konsole as super user in the terminal you do have. Once it's installed you can access it from the run command you've already been told about. Use Alt+F2 and type konsole and strike the enter key. Regards; Charlie - -- Edmonton,AB,Canada User #244963 at http://counter.li.org Mandrake Linux release 9.2 (FiveStar) for i586 kernel 2.4.22-21.tmb.1mdk 08:59:27 up 8 days, 18:48, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.01, 0.03 Ben, why didn't you tell me? -- Luke Skywalker -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.2.3 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQE/8FHvZqvqlrLPr5YRAms1AKCIOfJ1gc8C9fIoT78w4OCKWIj6sgCaAgSQ TE63qIhLalbL8d/mryldhqY= =yjSd -END PGP SIGNATURE- Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Sunday 28 December 2003 08:39, Steven Nelson wrote: The computer states that I am using, physical memory is to high. I Steven, there are two issues here. First, when you had 1024MB RAM installed you should have been using the Enterprise kernel - built to correctly handle ram over around 850MB Second - linux handles memory very differently from windows, which tends to cause panic in newbies - I remember the feeling :-) In fact it uses every scrap of memory available to it as and whenit needs it. It is much better than windows though in detecting the need to let go of something when it needs to make space. Although it looks alarming I have never heard of anyone running into actual difficulty through memory use, assuming that they had enough installed to get a system running :-) HTH Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
The kernel not being able to work correctly with over 850mb is most likely reason it only stated I was using around 850mb when there was 1024mb enabled. That is not the reason the physical memory is being used so much. I have had memory problems a couple of times. Not with this system, with another. Memory can easily cause a problem with the os or an application or another peice of hardware. The system I am using is fully compatible. There is still a memory problem with the 512mb installed. It is possible the memory is causing the problem, although I want to check if a memory configuration problem is causing the problem before I would buy more memory. The chance of it being another issue besides the memory is pretty high. Will somebody tell me how to correct the problem or ways to try and fix the problem if they know? From, Steven From: Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 08:53:58 + On Sunday 28 December 2003 08:39, Steven Nelson wrote: The computer states that I am using, physical memory is to high. I Steven, there are two issues here. First, when you had 1024MB RAM installed you should have been using the Enterprise kernel - built to correctly handle ram over around 850MB Second - linux handles memory very differently from windows, which tends to cause panic in newbies - I remember the feeling :-) In fact it uses every scrap of memory available to it as and whenit needs it. It is much better than windows though in detecting the need to let go of something when it needs to make space. Although it looks alarming I have never heard of anyone running into actual difficulty through memory use, assuming that they had enough installed to get a system running :-) HTH Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com _ Take advantage of our limited-time introductory offer for dial-up Internet access. http://join.msn.com/?page=dept/dialup Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Sunday 28 December 2003 09:15, Steven Nelson wrote: The kernel not being able to work correctly with over 850mb is most likely reason it only stated I was using around 850mb when there was 1024mb enabled. That is not the reason the physical memory is being used so much. I have had memory problems a couple of times. Not with this system, with another. Memory can easily cause a problem with the os or an application or another peice of hardware. The system I am using is fully compatible. There is still a memory problem with the 512mb installed. It is possible the memory is causing the problem, although I want to check if a memory configuration problem is causing the problem before I would buy more memory. The chance of it being another issue besides the memory is pretty high. Will somebody tell me how to correct the problem or ways to try and fix the problem if they know? From, Steven From: Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 08:53:58 + On Sunday 28 December 2003 08:39, Steven Nelson wrote: The computer states that I am using, physical memory is to high. I Steven, there are two issues here. First, when you had 1024MB RAM installed you should have been using the Enterprise kernel - built to correctly handle ram over around 850MB Second - linux handles memory very differently from windows, which tends to cause panic in newbies - I remember the feeling :-) In fact it uses every scrap of memory available to it as and whenit needs it. It is much better than windows though in detecting the need to let go of something when it needs to make space. Although it looks alarming I have never heard of anyone running into actual difficulty through memory use, assuming that they had enough installed to get a system running :-) HTH Anne -- Run top and copy/paste the summary lines at the top of the page. Anne -- Registered Linux User No.293302 Have you visited http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org yet? Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Sunday 28 Dec 2003 8:39 am, Steven Nelson wrote: SNIP The disk buffers are changing in between 14.15mb-14.20mb and disck cache is staying at 306.79 (during using the computer in the current session regulary for five minutes). If someone knows how to correct this problem will they tell me? So of your 512MB of physical memory 306MB is being used as a Disc cache. There is nothing wrong with this at all. Linux will use all unused memory as a disc cache in order to speed up disc access. The instant another application needs more memory some of this disc cache will be released and memory reallocated. Linux is considerably more efficient in its memory usage than Windows which just leaves memory lying around unused. The only time memory is ever an issue is when a process has a 'memory leak' and uses increasing amounts of memory. You can check for this by leaving 'top' running. Don't panic derek -- -- www.jennings.homelinux.net http://twiki.mdklinuxfaq.org Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high.
On Sunday 28 December 2003 10:44 am, Anne Wilson wrote: On Sunday 28 December 2003 09:15, Steven Nelson wrote: The kernel not being able to work correctly with over 850mb is most likely reason it only stated I was using around 850mb when there was 1024mb enabled. That is not the reason the physical memory is being used so much. I have had memory problems a couple of times. Not with this system, with another. Memory can easily cause a problem with the os or an application or another peice of hardware. The system I am using is fully compatible. There is still a memory problem with the 512mb installed. It is possible the memory is causing the problem, although I want to check if a memory configuration problem is causing the problem before I would buy more memory. The chance of it being another issue besides the memory is pretty high. Will somebody tell me how to correct the problem or ways to try and fix the problem if they know? From, Steven From: Anne Wilson [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [newbie] Physical memory is to high. Date: Sun, 28 Dec 2003 08:53:58 + On Sunday 28 December 2003 08:39, Steven Nelson wrote: The computer states that I am using, physical memory is to high. I Steven, there are two issues here. First, when you had 1024MB RAM installed you should have been using the Enterprise kernel - built to correctly handle ram over around 850MB Second - linux handles memory very differently from windows, which tends to cause panic in newbies - I remember the feeling :-) In fact it uses every scrap of memory available to it as and whenit needs it. It is much better than windows though in detecting the need to let go of something when it needs to make space. Although it looks alarming I have never heard of anyone running into actual difficulty through memory use, assuming that they had enough installed to get a system running :-) HTH Anne -- Run top and copy/paste the summary lines at the top of the page. Anne also copy and paste the section from your /etc/lilo.conf that is the 'stanza' you are booting from. you can also find memtester and memtest86 on the cdroms Want to buy your Pack or Services from MandrakeSoft? Go to http://www.mandrakestore.com
