I thought linux was low on resources?

zapp · 05-26-2003, 11:31 PM

Can anyone tell me why 94% of my memory is in use?
As you can tell from my top output, I don't have much running - fvwm2 as the windowmanager, an opera 7 session, and thats about it.
In Windows XP, I can have 10x that running and still keep memory usage under 40%. what gives?

To make matters worse, the %MEM column of top hardly adds up to 94%

Code:

Tasks:  51 total,   3 running,  47 sleeping,   1 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s):  11.3% user,   3.3% system,   0.0% nice,  85.4% idle
Mem:    516044k total,   490632k used,    25412k free,   205044k buffers
Swap:   128484k total,     3172k used,   125312k free,   111116k cached
                                                                                    
  PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
 1124 root      19   0  278m  21m 6900 R  8.0  4.2   3:46.35 X
 6238 aj        18   0 11660  11m 8244 S  3.3  2.3   0:02.71 gnome-terminal
 1463 aj        11   0 27400  26m 9844 R  1.7  5.3   1:44.77 opera
 6245 aj        10   0   984  984  800 R  0.3  0.2   0:00.22 top
    1 root       8   0    76   64   48 S  0.0  0.0   0:04.78 init
    2 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.31 keventd
    3 root      19  19     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.83 ksoftirqd_CPU0
    4 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:01.93 kswapd
    5 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.00 bdflush
    6 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.05 kupdated
    7 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:00.04 khubd
   10 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:13.38 kjournald
  149 root       9   0   536  524  468 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 dhcpcd
  182 root       9   0     0    0    0 S  0.0  0.0   0:13.17 msp3410 [auto]
  506 rpc        9   0   564  560  484 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.01 rpc.portmap
  512 root       9   0   612  612  528 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.11 syslogd
  515 root       9   0   460  460  400 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.09 klogd
  517 root       9   0   520  520  460 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.01 inetd
  520 root       9   0  1120 1048  908 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.26 sshd
  529 lp         9   0  1044  904  828 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 lpd
  532 root       8   0   592  588  520 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.02 crond
  534 daemon     9   0   652  636  580 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 atd
  537 root       9   0  1368 1196 1012 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.27 sendmail
  539 smmsp      9   0  1252 1084  916 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.01 sendmail
  544 root       8   0  1332 1332 1048 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.06 bash
  545 aj         9   0  1244  972  972 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 bash
  546 root       9   0   472  416  416 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 agetty
  547 root       9   0   472  416  416 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 agetty
  548 root       9   0   472  416  416 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 agetty
  549 root       9   0   472  416  416 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 agetty
 1111 aj         9   0   940  812  812 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.00 startx
 1123 aj         9   0   628  556  556 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 xinit
 1128 aj         9   0  1884 1872 1492 S  0.0  0.4   0:03.01 fvwm2
 1130 aj         9   0  1088 1032  964 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.40 FvwmPager
 1168 aj         9   0  1704 1640 1552 S  0.0  0.3   0:01.33 xscreensaver
 1353 root       9   0  2744 2744 2016 S  0.0  0.5   0:01.99 xterm
 1354 aj         9   0  1400 1400 1068 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.24 bash
 1366 aj         9   0  1132 1132  976 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.25 FvwmWinList
 1461 aj         9   0  1024 1024  864 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.01 opera
 1464 aj         9   0   540  540  460 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.04 FvwmAuto
 1465 aj         9   0 27400  26m 9844 S  0.0  5.3   0:00.22 opera
 1541 aj         9   0  1488 1488 1296 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.11 oclock
 6179 aj         9   0 43156  42m 3464 T  0.0  8.4   1:17.66 mplayer
 6185 root       9   0  2436 2436 1968 S  0.0  0.5   0:00.04 xterm
 6186 aj         8   0  1308 1308 1036 S  0.0  0.3   0:00.04 bash
 6240 aj         9   0  3060 3060 1940 S  0.0  0.6   0:00.15 gconfd-2
 6242 aj         9   0  2532 2532 1932 S  0.0  0.5   0:00.23 bonobo-activati
 6243 aj         9   0   640  640  556 S  0.0  0.1   0:00.00 gnome-pty-helpe
 6244 aj         9   0  1252 1252  988 S  0.0  0.2   0:00.01 bash
 6247 aj         9   0 12096  11m 7716 S  0.0  2.3   0:00.99 gnome-help
 6258 aj         8   0 12096  11m 7716 S  0.0  2.3   0:00.00 gnome-help

fancypiper · 05-26-2003, 11:38 PM

Linux memory management is different (and much more efficient) than Windows in memory management.

# Memory and swap information
free
An article: Tips for Optimizing Linux Memory

zapp · 05-27-2003, 12:15 AM

Thanks. that makes a lot of sense actually. I guess i've just spent too much time in windows watching memory carefully to make sure I don't end up paging to disk.

Electro · 05-27-2003, 12:20 AM

Next time do a search.

fancypiper · 05-27-2003, 12:42 AM

It always puzzled me why windows looks to the swap file first rather than last. And why did they use a file to create fragmentation rather than a partition for it???

kazuni · 05-27-2003, 06:29 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by fancypiper
It always puzzled me why windows looks to the swap file first rather than last. And why did they use a file to create fragmentation rather than a partition for it???

that's why it's called windows

Half_Elf · 05-27-2003, 11:02 AM

btw, you seem to have a lot of useful stuff running....
I don't think you need rpc.portmap as example... If you worry about ressource maybe you should close some useful service?