Ram Usage
 

What would the normal be on the RAM usage while running idle? With 60% showing with corky running is this good? It seems a little high but didn't know.

Re: Ram Usage
 

Unused RAM is a waste of, er, well, RAM. Linux will allocate RAM for cache and buffers when it has more than it needs.

Conky actually has two variables called "memfree" and "memeasyfree". The latter includes memory that is easily freed up, from buffers, etc. Note that the default Conky config uses neither of these.

A quick experiment with both leads me to conclude that the RAM Usage shown in Conky is based on the memeasyfree context, i.e. it doesn't include RAM allocated to buffers, etc.

In general, there's not much to worry about with RAM usage. If your Swap usage is high, then the system is getting heavily loaded.

Hope this helps.

Re: Ram Usage
 

Thanks I am running about 2% swap which for this device overall is damn good I am thinking. RAM seems a little high would like to see it down to about 20% when idle but for as small of a device as this is it appears to be understandable

Re: Ram Usage
 

You may not have quite got what fnordianslip wrote.

When linux reads some data from disk, it leaves it in RAM, just in case it needs the data again. When all the RAM has been used and more data is read, it replaces data that has not been reread very often or was read the longest time ago. If All the RAM is being used by running programs, then some data is moved from RAM to swap.

A lot of data is read by linux just booting, so very little RAM is ever completely free.

Re: Ram Usage
 

OIC Thanks, I sort of had a brief understand of the ram and always thought that the lower the amount the better when idle for speed when running mutiple programs at the same time. Swaping I am not to sure about but knew it had something to do with the ram, process and cpu speed. It seems to be doing pretty good at the moment I just thought it may have been a little high. Thanks

Re: Ram Usage
 

Hi I'm a little curious that Conky shows that my swap is used at around 4% just while opening browser(inbuilt and after a reboot) and as I write it went up to 7%. From my understanding, shouldn't it be used only when RAM is fully used coz my RAM usage is just 66%? and also that I understand swap is slower than RAM. Is it normal? Thanks.

Re: Ram Usage
 

No, rarely used data often gets moved to swap and the ram freed used to cache often-used files instead.

Re: Ram Usage
 

Sorry but is the reply "No" an answer to my question "is it normal?"

Re: Ram Usage
 

Yes, it is.

Edit: 200th post, woohoo!

Re: Ram Usage
 

so what should be done??

Re: Ram Usage
 

Nothing. That's perfectly normal.

Re: Ram Usage
 

I lift this thread as I'm still confused what is a normal ram usage. Does this look normal?

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/2641/ramuse.jpg

Only apps I've installed are 2g/3g selector, rootsh and OpenSSH client. Still ram usage jumps to that in a five minutes of reboot.

Re: Ram Usage
 

The memory manager for the device is pretty optimal at figuring out how to optimize things. If you feel the device is being slow, look at what you have running/loaded and see if you can spare it. (Widgets on your desktop, background programs, tool bar plugins, etc.)

Since there's no way to upgrade the amount of ram in the system, worrying about how it's being managed is kind of pointless. And if you haven't loaded it up with 50+ running apps or widgets or plugins, you're pretty much good. :)

Re: Ram Usage
 

Actually I was looking for reasons for short standby battery life (~30 hours), never had any problems device being slow with any programs:)

But does ram usage affect on that, if cpu usage stays around 0-3 % all the time?

Re: Ram Usage
 

Dynamic RAM (DRAM) like we have in these devices consumes power whether it is in use or not (for most definitions of 'in use'). So, the amount of RAM provided is subject to a tradeoff against battery life.

Linux prefers to use RAM for disk/file caching than to leave it unused, as unused RAM is a waste of space and power (and RAM). Swapping to/from the eMMC might consume more power though, not sure, but if you're idling at 3%, then you're probably not swapping.