From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon May 19 15:02:29 2003 Return-Path: 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 05D0637B401 for ; Mon, 19 May 2003 15:02:29 -0700 (PDT) Received: from silver.reallynicehosting.com (silver.reallynicehosting.com [216.40.238.203]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51FDE43F3F for ; Mon, 19 May 2003 15:02:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from hosting@reallynicehosting.com) Received: from bigblackhole (ts46-01-qdr64.astra.or.charter.com [66.190.246.64]) (authenticated (0 bits))h4JM0Nh06002 for ; Mon, 19 May 2003 15:00:23 -0700 From: Sender: "RN Hosting" To: Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 15:03:08 -0700 Message-ID: <001201c31e52$6fd77a90$6701a8c0@bigblackhole> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.2616 Importance: Normal In-Reply-To: <20030519190350.8F65E37B404@hub.freebsd.org> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2800.1165 Subject: FreeBSD's method of displaying ram usage in top X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 19 May 2003 22:02:29 -0000 In Linux when I run top I get something like this for memory usage: Mem: 1020344K av, 901388K used, 118956K free, 1348K shrd, 229732K buff Now on a FreeBSD box with a much smaller traffic load and much faster hardware (which should thus have more RAM free) I get this response under top: Mem: 191M Active, 583M Inact, 191M Wired, 31M Cache, 112M Buf, 5952K Free Now what does the FreeBSD version of top mean by inactive memory? This has Also is there a way to track how much ram is allocated to what in order to see where my memory is being used up at? I've been reading through man top and man 4 mem etc. but I am still confused as to what FreeBSD means by inactive memory and why there's less memory available on the FreeBSD machine when FreeBSD seems to be so much more scalable than Linux. Thank you very much for any help or pointers you are able to provide me with, Jesse