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Ubuntu memory usage

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AngryArtichoke

Member
Joined
Oct 13, 2007
I just came home for winter break, and ran the auto-updates. The computer got very sluggish, and apparently was using 1.9GB of memory when idle after the update. :cry: It only had 2GB of RAM in it, and when I added another two, it worked fine. Anyone have any clue what does this? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It is Ubuntu 8.10. I tried "top" in console and it is definitely not a CPU issue.
 
That isn't an accurate indication of memory usage. In any Linux system, all the memory will be used at all times. This has to do with the way linux caches things. The memory is not in active use.

It's highly unlikely that all that memory is really in use.
 
That isn't an accurate indication of memory usage. In any Linux system, all the memory will be used at all times. This has to do with the way linux caches things. The memory is not in active use.

It's highly unlikely that all that memory is really in use.

yup, yup, MRD is right.
here is an example:

Code:
mbentley@dual-xeon:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          3776       3753         23          0        184       2852
-/+ buffers/cache:        716       3059
Swap:          972          0        972

it says that i have used 3753 MB of ram and only have 23 MB free. but in reality, 3059 MB is just cached so actual usage is 716 MB.
 
That isn't an accurate indication of memory usage. In any Linux system, all the memory will be used at all times. This has to do with the way linux caches things. The memory is not in active use.

It's highly unlikely that all that memory is really in use.

This does not explain why he said

The computer got very sluggish,

It sound more like something is chewing up CPU time.
 
Yeah... it's not likely the ram, but it's got to be something. Check "top" and sort by cpu usage (or use the gui based system monitors if that's more your cup of tea).
 
This does not explain why he said



It sound more like something is chewing up CPU time.

but at the same time, it isn't very likely that something was really using up all of his ram. i believe he mentioned that nothing was hogging up the cpu usage either. maybe it was indexing the hard drive...

it is hard to say what it might have been since the sluggishness seems to have gone away with more ram. i ran ubuntu on a p4 2.8 w/512 mb of ram and it did ok. when i was doing a bit of multitasking it was slow but besides that, it wasn't any more sluggish than it is now that i have added another stick of 512.

Yeah... it's not likely the ram, but it's got to be something. Check "top" and sort by cpu usage (or use the gui based system monitors if that's more your cup of tea).

i personally keep system monitor running in my gnome panel.
 
Check if there is an ldlinux.so process gobbling ram. It's a remnant from Adobe Acrobat Reader and is known to bring powerful systems to their knees. Just kill the process and it fixes itself, and try to avoid acrobat reader until they fix that bug.
 
Is there a command like "top" that will display memory usage instead of CPU usage? Even with the increased RAM, it still says it uses 1.9GB. Thanks for all the responses.
 
Top shows both. Use the < and > keys to change what it sorts by.
 
Couple of things on a 'Buntu machine I find to chew up performance at times.

npviewer.bin (When flash goes crazy and crashes. It shows up in the system monitor)

Nautilus sometime will show a bug or two and chew up ram/CPU time due to how it previews some file types. Pretty much it makes the manager goes crazy and eat loads of RAM.

If any of these apply to you. Just kill them and it should restore things back to normal.
 
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