From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Dec  1 03:27:17 2004
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 33DDE16A4CE
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  1 Dec 2004 03:27:17 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from mtiwmhc13.worldnet.att.net (mtiwmhc13.worldnet.att.net
	[204.127.131.117])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FBA043D5C
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  1 Dec 2004 03:27:16 +0000 (GMT)
	(envelope-from r.p.demarco@att.net)
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2004 03:27:11 +0000 (GMT)
X-Comment: Sending client does not conform to RFC822 minimum requirements
X-Comment: Date has been added by Maillennium
Received: from localhost
	(129.washington-42rh15-16rt.dc.dial-access.att.net[12.77.64.129])
	by worldnet.att.net (mtiwmhc13) with SMTP
	id <2004120103271111300d8esge>; Wed, 1 Dec 2004 03:27:11 +0000
From: r.p.demarco@att.net
Sender: root@localhost.FreeBSD.ORG
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Message-Id: <20041201032716.8FBA043D5C@mx1.FreeBSD.org>
Subject: Can 10M Buffer Ceiling be lowere?
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 01 Dec 2004 03:27:17 -0000

     A technical question:

     I have an old NEC computer (c. 1997) running 5.3-RELEASE with
48M of RAM.  Getting a new computer isn't an option right now, but
I would like to get as much out of my memory as possible.
     My /boot/kernel/kernel file is about 3M, and from the initial
boot: 
		real memory  = 50331648 (48 MB)
		avail memory = 43896832 (41 MB)
it appears this kernel takes up about 7M of memory with one screen saver
kld loaded.  With a few unneeded services (cron, sendmail) disabled, I
start off with about 26M free after a fresh reboot with just root logged in,
running `top'.  Looking at top, I noticed:

                Mem: 4320K Active, 15M Inact, 12M Wired, 10M Buf, 11M Free
                                                         ^^^

     From TOP(1):

                Buf: number of pages used for BIO-level disk caching

     Actually, the 10M is after some disk usage (it starts ~6M).
It never gets above 10M.  Is there anyway to adjust this, to
(say) a maximum of 5M?  Yes, a new 256 MB RAM system would be nice,
but until then, I would like to avoid serious paging running xclock :)
Thanks,

     -Rob