Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2000 01:48:00 -0700 (PDT) From: John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG> To: Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org> Cc: freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG, Nik Clayton <nik@FreeBSD.ORG>, Ben Smithurst <ben@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: FAQ addition Message-ID: <XFMail.000714014800.jhb@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <20000714102522.A61949@mithrandr.moria.org>
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On 14-Jul-00 Neil Blakey-Milner wrote: > On Thu 2000-07-13 (21:34), Ben Smithurst wrote: >> I'm intending to add something like this, >> >> --- book.sgml 2000/07/11 21:36:22 1.70 >> +++ book.sgml 2000/07/13 20:32:50 >> @@ -8411,6 +8411,20 @@ >> </answer></qandaentry> >> >> <qandaentry><question> >> +<para>Why does <command>top</command> show very little free memory when I >> +have very few programs running?</para></question><answer> >> + >> +<para>The simple answer is that free memory is wasted memory. >> +Any memory that your programs don't actively allocate is used >> +within the FreeBSD kernel as disk cache. The values shown by >> +<command>top</command> labelled as <emphasis>Inact</emphasis>, >> +<emphasis>Cache</emphasis>, and <emphasis>Buf</emphasis> are all >> +cached data at different aging levels. You actually want as little >> +<emphasis>Free</emphasis> memory as possible.</para> This actually is not quite true. You don't want 0 free memory. :) A better way to phrase this might be to explain that the cached data allows the system to use up available free memory to remember things that it has recently used allowing it to avoid having to use the slow disk as often, and thus increasing performance. Free memory is the memory left over after the caching. Or something along those lines. >> + >> +</answer></qandaentry> >> + >> +<qandaentry><question> >> <para> Why use (what are) a.out and ELF executable formats? >> </para></question><answer> >> >> My only worry is that it's not detailed enough. Perhaps I could search >> the -questions archive to find other answers from the past and combine >> bits from them all... I'll look at that shortly. > > Oooh, another person foolish enough to attempt to rein in the FAQ. ;) > > Actually, that looks good. > > I'd prefer <literal> instead of <emphasis>. > > Also <application> instead of <command>. My (limited) understanding is > when you're talking about a program or group of programs, it's > <application>, and if you're talking about a somewhat specific command > (like "rm -rf /"), it's <command>. You could just skip that, and use > &man.top.1; *grin*. That's they way I read <command> and <application>, too. However, we always use the man.<foo>.1 entities when referring to Un*x commands, so &man.top.1; is probably the best choice. > Nik, can you give me a refresher? (: > > Neil > -- > Neil Blakey-Milner > Sunesi Clinical Systems > nbm@mithrandr.moria.org > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message -- John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.org> -- http://www.FreeBSD.org/~jhb/ PGP Key: http://www.cslab.vt.edu/~jobaldwi/pgpkey.asc "Power Users Use the Power to Serve!" - http://www.FreeBSD.org/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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