It's possible to free memory?

LittleBug · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 10:05 am Post subject: It's possible to free memory?

Hi @ all!
Some time ago my 1GB RAM stick says me "So long and thanks for all the fish!" then die. From that I limited to use only 512MB :cry:

!
Well! this is not a huge problem but when I launch emerge or heavyweight application, of course, free memory go down and when the program are closed free memory doesn't rise. After a while if I launch any other program system goning to swap and this is not very good!

My question is: "Is it possible to get out garbage that stay in RAM without any pourpose?"

Thanks!

slackline · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 11:46 am Post subject:

My understanding is that the kernel will free up memory when its requested unless its actually being used.

Thus when you close your heavy-weight application and it appears as though the memory isn't free you will find that if you start another heavy-weight application that requires the memory it will be available.

Memory is cheap, so grab some and get back to your previous levels (or even upgrade higher!).
_________________
"Science is what we understand well enough to explain to a computer. Art is everything else we do." - Donald Knuth

cach0rr0 · Posted: Fri Jan 23, 2009 2:11 pm Post subject: Re: It's possible to free memory?

AllenJB · Veteran Joined: 02 Sep 2005 Posts: 1285

You generally shouldn't need to worry about memory management at all.

A quick tutorial on reading free memory. Run "free", and you'll see something like the following output.

iarwain · Apprentice Joined: 25 Sep 2003 Posts: 253

LittleBug · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 4:54 pm Post subject:

Hi there, sorry for late but I had some connection problems!
Mmm ok you says that I shouldn't worry about free memory. I like Linux kernel a little more now!

Thanks for replies!

i92guboj · Posted: Mon Jan 26, 2009 5:20 pm Post subject:

Yes. There's nothing living resident on your ram after running emerge or whatever.

It's just cached memory, which essentially is the same than free memory. You just need to learn how to read the top/free output. If you really hit swap intensively then the reason is straight: you either need to choose lighter programs or heavier hardware. :p

LittleBug · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 11:19 am Post subject:

I'm thinking to use BadRam patch into kernel with the hope my old 1GB ram are not too bad....

What do you think about?

i92guboj · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 5:31 pm Post subject:

I know some people that uses this patch without problems. However the results are always dependent on the concrete hardware and the kind of damage. It's worth trying. If you experience instability or random crashes you can always take the bad module out again.

jcat · Veteran Joined: 26 May 2006 Posts: 1337

I know it's all relative, but RAM is so cheap now, it rather than mess around with strange patches, I would just by some more

Cheers,
Just

LittleBug · Posted: Tue Jan 27, 2009 7:10 pm Post subject:

Yeah! I know, RAM isn't expensive BUT mine, is an old system and DDR is more expensive than DDR2, (here in Italy, Stupid Italy) AND I suppose that my old 1GB RAM stick isn't totally screwed up (I hope); than as long as (the patch for) linux kernel (eheh linux rulez) give me this opportunity, why waste it? :wink: