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From: collins@osf.org (Jeff Collins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.alliant
Subject: Re: Controlling free memory
Message-ID: <4843@paperboy.OSF.ORG>
Date: 9 Mar 90 22:41:11 GMT
References: <1990Mar9.174826.11922@Neon.Stanford.EDU>
Sender: news@OSF.ORG
Reply-To: collins@osf.org (Jeff Collins)
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Lines: 30

In article <1990Mar9.174826.11922@Neon.Stanford.EDU>,
weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Joe Weening) writes:
> When I run "mon -m", the bottom line on the screen shows the current
> amount of free memory.  In our system, with 48MB of physical memory,
> this number never seems to go much below 5MB.  I'd like to make it
> much closer to zero, so that user processes can use more of the
> available memory.  Is there a way to do this?
> 
> --
> Joe Weening                                Computer Science Dept.
> weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU          Stanford University

	That number indicates the amount of free memory.  If there is any free
	memory and it is needed by a program it will be allocated.  In other words,
	if the memory demand on you system was sufficient, then that number
	would go down.  Your next question might be "does my kernel start paging
	to keep that number at 5MB or higher?"  The answer is no.  The kernel is
	very smart about how it allocates physical memory and when it starts
	paging.

	Be satisfied with the fact that your user communitee is not demanding
more than,
	on average, 43MB of physical memory.  If the user communitee needed
more than this
	it would be allocated, and the number would go below 5MB free.

  Jeffery A. Collins				Phone: (617) 621-8958
  Open Software Foundation			FAX:   (617) 225-2782
  11 Cambridge Center				Email: collins@osf.org
  Cambridge MA 02142				       uunet!osf.org!collins