From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jul 24 13:46:14 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 F256A37B405 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:46:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mta7.adelphia.net (mta7.adelphia.net [64.8.50.193]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id F28E543FA3 for ; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 13:46:12 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from potentialtech.com ([24.53.179.151]) by mta7.adelphia.net (InterMail vM.5.01.05.32 201-253-122-126-132-20030307) with ESMTP id <20030724204612.RBGN18750.mta7.adelphia.net@potentialtech.com>; Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:46:12 -0400 Message-ID: <3F204594.7070907@potentialtech.com> Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:46:12 -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: Jeremy Messenger References: <000001c3521a$7fa912c0$6bd4bfac@AlHindawi> <3F203931.3030300@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: Ahmed Al-Hindawi 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 20:46:14 -0000 Jeremy Messenger wrote: > On Thu, 24 Jul 2003 15:53:21 -0400, Bill Moran > wrote: > >> 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. > > Well, the 5.0, old -CURRENT and 4.8 have never touch the swap, until > 5.1- CURRENT. My system has 256mb ram and it's always touch swap now. If > I compile some stuff, sometime it will get around 300mb swap. Current, I > only have Gnome 2.3.x and Opera running, so what my top looks like this: Well, the old YMMV applies, but I'm not seeing this kind of behaviour. I'm also not running 5.1-CURRENT, but 5.1-RELEASE, so it may be a newly introduced problem. The original poster didn't specify whether he was using -CURRENT or 5.1-RELEASE. > Mem: 85M Active, 29M Inact, 51M Wired, 4496K Cache, 35M Buf, 73M Free > Swap: 512M Total, 79M Used, 433M Free, 15% Inuse Did something use most of the memory up to start the system swapping? If it started using swap while there was still 73M free, then that's new to me. > But, I will remove the Gnome System Monitor applet, then reboot and see > how it goes for the whole afternoon. I'm not saying that Gnome System Monitor is causing the problem, I'm just saying that it reports inaccurate numbers. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com