FREE(1) Linux User's Manual FREE(1)NAME
free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system
SYNOPSIS
free [-b|-k|-m|-g] [-c count] [-l] [-o] [-t] [-s delay] [-V]
DESCRIPTION
free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The
shared memory column should be ignored; it is obsolete.
OPTIONS
-b Display the amount of memory in bytes.
-c count
Display the result count times. Requires the -s option.
-g Display the amount of memory in gigabytes.
-k Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. This is the default.
-l Show detailed low and high memory statistics.
-m Display the amount of memory in megabytes.
-o Display the output in old format, the only difference being this option will disable the display of the "buffer adjusted" line.
-s Continuously display the result delay seconds apart. You may actually specify any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is used
for microsecond resolution delay times.
-t Display a line showing the column totals.
-V Display version information.
FILES
/proc/meminfo memory information
AUTHORS
Written by Brian Edmonds.
Send bug reports to <albert@users.sf.net>
SEE ALSO ps(1), slabtop(1), top(1), vmstat(8).
Cohesive Systems 5 Oct 2009 FREE(1)
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FREE(1) User Commands FREE(1)NAME
free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system
SYNOPSIS
free [options]
DESCRIPTION
free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers and caches used by the ker-
nel. The information is gathered by parsing /proc/meminfo. The displayed columns are:
total Total installed memory (MemTotal and SwapTotal in /proc/meminfo)
used Used memory (calculated as total - free)
free Unused memory (MemFree and SwapFree in /proc/meminfo)
shared Memory used (mostly) by tmpfs (Shmem in /proc/meminfo, available on kernels 2.6.32, displayed as zero if not available)
buffers
Memory used by kernel buffers (Buffers in /proc/meminfo)
cached Memory used by the page cache (calculated as Cached - Shmem in /proc/meminfo - the Cached value is actually the sum of page cache
and tmpfs memory)
OPTIONS -b, --bytes
Display the amount of memory in bytes.
-k, --kilo
Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. This is the default.
-m, --mega
Display the amount of memory in megabytes.
-g, --giga
Display the amount of memory in gigabytes.
--tera Display the amount of memory in terabytes.
-h, --human
Show all output fields automatically scaled to shortest three digit unit and display the units of print out. Following units are
used.
B = bytes
K = kilos
M = megas
G = gigas
T = teras
If unit is missing, and you have petabyte of RAM or swap, the number is in terabytes and columns might not be aligned with header.
-c, --count count
Display the result count times. Requires the -s option.
-l, --lohi
Show detailed low and high memory statistics.
-o, --old
Display the output in old format, the only difference being this option will disable the display of the "buffer adjusted" line.
-s, --seconds seconds
Continuously display the result delay seconds apart. You may actually specify any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is
used for microsecond resolution delay times.
--si Use power of 1000 not 1024.
-t, --total
Display a line showing the column totals.
--help Print help.
-V, --version
Display version information.
FILES
/proc/meminfo
memory information
SEE ALSO ps(1), slabtop(1), top(1), vmstat(8).
AUTHORS
Written by Brian Edmonds.
REPORTING BUGS
Please send bug reports to <procps@freelists.org>
procps-ng September 2011 FREE(1)