Trying to free up ram (SOLVED)!

[tinypoodle]

I've also seen it suggested to run cache-clear periodically in the background
to boost the reported amount of free memory, this is a bad idea.

Depends on setup, while running in default mode I wouldn't note any difference in performance.

When you are done reading this would you please go
to your first post, click on edit, and change the title to something relating to the subject, for example,
"Trying to free up RAM" or "Why do I have so little free RAM" or something else appropriate.

+1
Shift rant from topic into post, if you must...  

[Rich]

I stand by my statement.

[glene77is]

One of the design philosophies of the memory manager
is that "unused memory is wasted memory".

Rich,
It is INDEED a "design philosophy of memory management".    
My first computer, AIM-65 had 4 KB of RAM, and I had to design/build a 32 KB RAM board for development, in assembler, of motor controls.  
My Altair 8000, S-50 buss, had 8" floppies, and a 16 KB Ram Board.
My Apple II had 16 KB RAM, extended by a 48 KB board.
My Apple II, running a Z80 card, and CP/M, wanted a 64 KB RamCard, so I built one.
My IBM-PC wanted extended memory, then expanded memory.  
They all needed a Swap File, Paged-in binary modules, Layered-modules, etc.
We all have Swap files and Swap partitions to handle over-flow, out-flow, retrievable-flow, etc.
It is INDEED a "design philosophy of memory management" and a real necessity.  
    
Thanks for the reminder,
glene77is

[Rich]

Hi glene77is
A yes, 8" floppies, that brings back memories. Ever see what happens when you put a hard sectored
disk in a soft sectored drive?

[tinypoodle]

Umm, removing a word from topic was not the issue, but giving it a title reflecting the content of the thread for future reference...  

[glene77is]

Umm, removing a word from topic was not the issue, but giving it a title reflecting the content of the thread for future reference...  

Tiny,
Right on. 
The title does not contain relevant "categorical" data for future searches.
glene77is

[tinypoodle]

Umm, removing a word from topic was not the issue, but giving it a title reflecting the content of the thread for future reference...  

Tiny,
Right on. 
The title does not contain relevant "categorical" data for future searches.
glene77is

Well, I changed the subject line of all my post in this thread, because that is what I can do...

[Rich]

Ditto.

[cURIOUSgEORGE]

 After deleteing everything in mydata.tgz and rebooting "with the backup option" the committed_as is back to normal "HELL YEAH"!!! I don't understand why nobody understood what I was talking about...... After uninstalling a program the committed_as should go down NOT KEEP BUILDING because that's how LINUX WAS DESIGNED! Wouldn't make any sense.

The system went from 400000kb committed_as to now 74000kb on system start.

[curaga]

http://www.redhat.com/advice/tips/meminfo.html

The Committed_AS is a guesstimate of how much RAM/swap you would need worst-case.

committed_as does not measure real memory.

[cURIOUSgEORGE]

Committed_AS: An estimate of how much RAM you would need to make a 99.99% guarantee that there never is OOM (out of memory) for this workload. Normally the kernel will overcommit memory. That means, say you do a 1GB malloc, nothing happens, really. Only when you start USING that malloc memory you will get real memory on demand, and just as much as you use. So you sort of take a mortgage and hope the bank doesn't go bust. Other cases might include when you mmap a file that's shared only when you write to it and you get a private copy of that data. While it normally is shared between processes. The Committed_AS is a guesstimate of how much RAM/swap you would need worst-case.


Yes BUT where's it getting it's bright idea of it's "guesstimate"? From all of the programs installed, right? Basically?

Well, when I uninstalled many programs the committed_as was still growing "as if they where still there"!

That was my whole point.

[netnomad]

by the way,
although there are so many interesting things to know about mem, swap and so on,
you could use just a script that frees unused stuff.

i use it f.e. when i work on a large grafic-file with gimp and my 1GB of ram is not enough and my system begins to swap.
at the same time it's getting slow to work, and the swap is also not freed after i close that file.
and the systems remains slow afterwards, too...

#! /bin/sh
su -c "sync; echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches && swapoff -a && swapon -a"

i use this script now for a couple of months on different platforms and it just works.

[cURIOUSgEORGE]

@netnomad , sounds like a very good idea and I'll try that out if ever needed. As of now my system is running excellent.
Thanks for the tip though.