From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 24 12:53:23 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 741EF37B401 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:53:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mta3.adelphia.net (mta3.adelphia.net [64.8.50.181]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B721243FB1 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 12:53:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from potentialtech.com ([24.53.179.151]) by mta3.adelphia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.05.32 201-253-122-126-132-20030307) with ESMTP id <20030724195322.QSTN27424.mta3.adelphia.net@potentialtech.com>; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:53:22 -0400 Message-ID: <3F203931.3030300@potentialtech.com> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:53:21 -0400 From: Bill Moran User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.3) Gecko/20030429 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ahmed Al-Hindawi References: <000001c3521a$7fa912c0$6bd4bfac@AlHindawi> In-Reply-To: <000001c3521a$7fa912c0$6bd4bfac@AlHindawi> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Memory Mangement Problem in 5.1-RELEASE X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 19:53:23 -0000 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