what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

In my Nokia N900 i have installed conky and the app is shwoxing me that around 60% of my RAM is already used up and i think thats a lot so i would like to know how can u reduce the RAM usage?

Plus i want to know what is rootfs becuase only 77mb of my rootfs is remaining out of 220?

I must tell you that i dont know a thing about using x terminal, i am a noob in that region.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

What would you like to do with non-used free ram my friend? Give it to me?

And your rootfs with 77mb is just fine.

.edit
Weird. I´m just thinking how i could pump up my ram full of different stuff so that they are accessible fast.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

77mb in rootfs is plenty and 60% ram used is normal.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

well actually i am very new to N900 so i dont know much but thanks a lot slender and mece. Thanks to both of you

well anyway even if i had to reduce both the things then what was i suppose to do?

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

Think of the root file-system (a.k.a "/") as like a C: drive on Windows. Its full of stuff that you may never need to touch. Installed apps typically go into /opt which is like "C:/Program Files", but stored in another partition.

Unused RAM is a waste of power and money. More RAM is in use than you think. Conky shows free RAM including RAM that is allocated to buffers and cached files, as that can be freed up for apps to use.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

RAM should be used at all times (cached if not in use by application)! There should be no more then 5% free RAM.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

how is that possible to use so much ram?

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

There's 32G+256M of storage in N900. That's plenty to pick from to fill ram with. If the kernel picks the right things, it means it'll already be in RAM and doesn't have to be loaded from the relatively slow storage when it's needed.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

so you are buying ram just for keeping it idle for 24/7? a bit like buying 5x 1TB hard drives and keep them under a matress...

e: or are you just wondering how it is possible to keep a track of ram and when amount of x mb is needed, a magical piece of software would just flush about the amount of ram needed from inactive processes/etc?

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

Short answer - Linux. Its wrong to think that RAM should be free i.e. Windows stupid RAM management. RAM should be use at all times by the system i.e. cached. Doing this the applications that may need will access it faster.

For longer answer check google :)

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

I didnt know this fact that ram usage is differen tin both OS

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

@sam9953 not really. The meters are different.
XP uses the caché as linux do. but when you ask the task manager, it says "you have that memory free", you need to look deeper to understand that the free memory are already used for cache.

Linux doesnt hides you that information. Almost any meter shows you how the memory is allocated, even for cache

Thats why you dont need to worry for the free memory, and that memory dont consume almost any power.

If something drains battery, mem is not.

Re: what is rootfs? and how do i reduce RAM usage?
 

That cleared my doubt quite a bit