Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:53:21 -0400 From: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> To: Ahmed Al-Hindawi <civilized_tafeely@hotmail.com> Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Memory Mangement Problem in 5.1-RELEASE Message-ID: <3F203931.3030300@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <000001c3521a$7fa912c0$6bd4bfac@AlHindawi> References: <000001c3521a$7fa912c0$6bd4bfac@AlHindawi>
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Ahmed Al-Hindawi wrote: > Hi, > I have 160Mb of SDRAM (PC100) on a 233Mhz CyrixInstead machine and I > seem to have memory mangament problems. The BIOS indicates I have 160, > so does the BSD bootstrap program. > > When I launch GNOME 2.2 everythings is good as gold untill I open the > System monitor program. It says that I have 149 Mb of RAM which is fine > ( 4Mb of video..and the rest...god knows). > > I open every program I have and after 107Mb the machine starts to swap > with about 50Mb left unused!! > > I recompliled the GENERIC kernal for the sake of it really (Im still an > amature) I didn't mess with the configuration files or anything (I just > don't know how!!). > > Is this normal or mismanagement of memory in the 5.1 version of the > excellent FreeBSD kernel?? The mistake is in the way the Gnome System Monitor display the free memory. I just watched both 'top' and the System Monitor as I opened program after program until the system started swapping, and System monitor reports almost 100M free while top reported less than 10M. To _always_ have a little memory free is A Good Thing(tm). FreeBSD has some pretty advanced memory management that will start swapping _before_ the system runs out of RAM. However, the System Monitor's display of this is simply inaccurate. There was NOT 100M free when it started swapping on my system. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com
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