Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community

Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: Interpreting Linux's free command output
Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers Interpreting Linux's free command output Post 303010968 by drysdalk on Thursday 11th of January 2018 07:36:35 AM
Old 01-11-2018
Hi,

Taking your questions in turn:

1. Buffers and cache are essentially types of memory that, whilst they are in use, could be freed up if the system required memory for some other purpose. These are types of memory that are mostly used to hold things which either are yet to be written or have recently been read from disk, in order to accelerate file I/O. So if ever a process genuinely needs more memory than is sitting absolutely unused (which is the total in the 'free' column) more can be obtained by flushing out certain things from the buffers and/or cache.

2. The 'free' column shows you the memory on the system which is genuinely 100% unused - so not in use by a process, and not part of the buffers, cache or shared memory pool. The 'available' column consists of the 'free' memory, plus whatever memory from other categories (mainly the buffers and cache) which could be easily freed up if required. So you can take 'available' as a trustworthy figure as the amount of free memory that applications could use if they needed to.

Hope this helps.
These 2 Users Gave Thanks to drysdalk For This Post:
omega3 rbatte1
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

How to Use the Free Command in Linux

I know that free command displays memory usages however I like to know how the option and the results when I use this command.. PLease respond ASAP thanx... I am a newbie.. :D (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: LiTo
1 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Interpreting java output stream as system commands in Solaris

Hi there again, Running Solaris 10 with built-in Java. Seems to compile and run fine. Problem is: Say I want to see contents of current directory. In a shell, I'd just write "ls" and it outputs the content. When I write a Java file, I have the following line: System.out.println("ls"); ... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: EugeneG
1 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

Interpreting Logicals/Environment Variables using the read command

Hi All I have something that from the outset seems really trivial but in practice is not quite working. I have the following code sample in my shell script which illustrates the problem echo "enter home directory" read home mkdir $home/newdir The user then enters a logical $HOME... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: kingpin2502
3 Replies

4. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

interpreting netstat output

hi all, when I run- wcars1j5#netstat -an | grep 8090 127.0.0.1.8090 *.* 0 0 49152 0 LISTEN wcars1j5# 1. does this mean that no one is connected to this port? Regards, akash (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: akash_mahakode
1 Replies

5. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Interpreting prtdiag output - 2 or 4 CPUs?

I am having trouble figuring this one out.....Is this a 2CPU or a 4CPU v490 with 16GB? I think it is a 2CPU system, looking for confirmation. $ prtdiag System Configuration: Sun Microsystems sun4u Sun Fire V490 System clock frequency: 150 MHz Memory size: 16384 Megabytes ... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: config_boy
1 Replies

6. UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Output of Free command in unix?

Hello, I need some help to interpret the below output... What is -/+ buffers/cache? My understanding is, total RAM is 3986152 Bytes, used RAM is 3950904 bytes. What is buffers and cached?? Can any one please interpret this output? It would be great help if some one can help me on this? ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: govindts
2 Replies

7. Red Hat

Understand output of "free" command

Hi Friends, I am really confused with the output of "free" command on redhat linux. I can see caching and buffer output on two different areas on the output. Please let me know whats the difference of these two different outputs. Here I am pasting the command output of my server. # free... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: arumon
3 Replies

8. Solaris

Interpreting xntpdc output.

Hi. I wonder what the equal sign in front of the answer means. I have read man pages and googled but found no answer. xntpdc -p =15.5.64.3 15.5.2.51 3 512 377 0.02060 0.057426 0.04965Thanks. Jan (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: vettec3
1 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Linux command to output from a string

Hi All, I have a file with name Is there a LINUX command that will help me to output the word after the 9th Underscore(_). ie the output should be DLY in this case. Can anybody pls help me. Thanks much in advance, Freddie (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: dsfreddie
4 Replies

10. Red Hat

Concept of free –m command in Linux

I wanted to know the concept of free -m command as there are different rows of Mem, -/+ buffers/cache & Swap in the output. As an example, it is showing 195 as free Mem in my server but 13850 in the free section of the -/+ buffers/cache row. The output needs in depth knowledge of the different... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: RHCE
7 Replies

LEARN ABOUT REDHAT

gusload

GUSLOAD(1)							   AWE32 manual 							GUSLOAD(1)

NAME

       gusload - load a GUS-format patch file into the AWE32 RAM

SYNOPSIS

       gusload [-Iixv] [-b bank] [-p preset] GUSpatch

DESCRIPTION

       This  manual  page  documents  briefly the gusload command.  This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux distribution (but may be
       used by others), because the original program does not have a manual page.

       gusload is a program that will read a GUS-format patch file, and then upload it to the Linux AWE32 driver, to be used by other AWE32 utili-
       ties, e.g. drvmidi(1).

OPTIONS

       The program follows the usual UNIX command line syntax, but doesn't support long options (options starting with two dashes `-').  Here is a
       summary of the options is accepts:-

       -I     (Re-)Initializes the AWE32 driver.

       -i     Resets all samples.

       -x     Removes the last samples in the AWE32's RAM.

       -v     Verbose mode.

       -p [preset]
	      Sets the instrument number to [preset]. Defaults to values specified in the patch file.

       -b [bank]
	      Sets the "bank" that the instruments are loaded into. Defaults to bank 0.

       -c [chorus]
	      Sets the amount of chorus, ranging from 0 to 100.

       -r [reverb]
	      Sets the amount of reverberation, ranging from 0 to 100.

SEE ALSO

       sfxload(1)

AUTHOR

       This manual page was written by Tom Lees <tom@lpsg.demon.co.uk>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system.

       The AWE32 driver and utilities were written by Takashi Iwai <iwai@dragon.mm.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp>.

awesfx 0.3.3						   Mon Feb 17 10:35:23 GMT 1997 						GUSLOAD(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 07:32 PM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy