From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 7 13:34:33 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A23C106566C for ; Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:34:33 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from rwmaillists@googlemail.com) Received: from mail-wy0-f182.google.com (mail-wy0-f182.google.com [74.125.82.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BF6068FC1B for ; Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:34:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: by wyb29 with SMTP id 29so67035wyb.13 for ; Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:34:31 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:date:from:to:subject :message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer:mime-version :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=TV2ZXTtnI2shueHGOv8V2BoiLPRIuyF7ZCezwWQILWA=; b=nvAugUAYN7os9BJgguCEv3QYCNxCFOufG3sOepv3p1wN2ZfOQU9RTNyuRXPAbcwbgl WKXQgyjkTf7HzAeTbK3+dRHeAMuTAR7Od3hyzqqUFZb6c3UXnKOKT8BjwIQR9n6TYzxK lrn5ZeFcorCulB2oOenf6SJQ8ph7zeLqetW2g= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=googlemail.com; s=gamma; h=date:from:to:subject:message-id:in-reply-to:references:x-mailer :mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=o5W/BaoZeXOE0vTwT3KKJbL9jK262U3HffETixx9IOjaxOHRLjNJAoYZP3u2uIMZcZ 0WKABLumg/G+LuJfdbl4Y3zkg0y/D4a3/UNZRH4RHCde8bjw02ZXUCTJuZFZUCXlo6zc wMViPvlCILs2cDTBJHK5xhzeQA2svANlNEKd4= Received: by 10.216.21.206 with SMTP id r56mr2320251wer.31.1286458471560; Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:34:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from gumby.homeunix.com (bb-87-81-140-128.ukonline.co.uk [87.81.140.128]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id x75sm230954weq.26.2010.10.07.06.34.29 (version=SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:34:30 -0700 (PDT) Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 14:34:27 +0100 From: RW To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20101007143427.1245645f@gumby.homeunix.com> In-Reply-To: <201010071113.o97BDg0X017404@mp.cs.niu.edu> References: <201010071113.o97BDg0X017404@mp.cs.niu.edu> X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.7.6 (GTK+ 2.20.1; i386-portbld-freebsd8.1) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Cache Memory in top command X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 07 Oct 2010 13:34:33 -0000 On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 06:13:42 -0500 (CDT) Scott Bennett wrote: > On Wed, 29 Sep 2010 12:42:30 +0100 Bruce Cran > wrote: > >You can find more information about the VM architecture at > >http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en/books/arch-handbook/vm.html . > > > The top(1) man page is clearly in error, at least on FreeBSD > systems. The descriptions of the Active, Inact, Wired, Cache, Buf, > and Free fields are all wrong inasmuch as the word "pages" in each > should instead be "bytes". For example, top on my system at present > shows: > > Mem: 1099M Active, 401M Inact, 262M Wired, 88M Cache, 112M Buf, 143M > Free > > Consider the value given for "Wired" (i.e., page-fixed pages, which > cannot exceed the number of page frames on the machine, of course.) > Now, either "M" has some extraordinary definition, or it means > "mega", though presumably in the classical computing sense of the > power of 2 that is closest to one million. It does actually say, just above, that M and K are megabytes and kilobytes. It is wrong though, in that it has "number of pages" when it should have "memory from pages" or just "pages"