From owner-freebsd-questions  Fri Mar 28 16:08:49 1997
Return-Path: <owner-questions>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id QAA15179
          for questions-outgoing; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:08:49 -0800 (PST)
Received: from relay-7.mail.demon.net (relay-7.mail.demon.net [194.217.242.9])
          by freefall.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id QAA15171
          for <questions@freebsd.org>; Fri, 28 Mar 1997 16:08:44 -0800 (PST)
Received: from longacre.demon.co.uk ([158.152.156.24]) by relay-5.mail.demon.net
           id aa0504057; 28 Mar 97 23:55 GMT
From: Michael Searle <searle@longacre.demon.co.uk>
Message-ID: <m722CAFA5@longacre.demon.co.uk>
To: questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: explain top
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 1997 23:54:52 GMT
X-Mailer: Offlite 0.09 / Termite Internet for Acorn RISC OS
Sender: owner-questions@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

>i can't make any sort of sense out of top's output.  in particular, these lines
>confuse me:
>
>Mem: 19M Active, 1944K Inact, 7120K Wired, 49M Cache, 8240K Buf, 128K Free
>Swap: 131M Total, 5968K Used, 125M Free, 5% Inuse
>
>when this machine boots, it says:
>
>real memory  = 83886080 (81920K bytes)
>Physical memory hole(s):
>avail memory = 79245312 (77388K bytes)
>
>so, about 77 meg of RAM available.  how is that i only have 19M active and 128K
>free?
>
>i really just don't understand what top is telling me, i guess.  any tips
>appreciated.

Because of the other stuff, mainly that 49M cache. 19+2+49+8 ~= 77 meg.

-- 
Michael Searle - searle@longacre.demon.co.uk