need help interpreting 'free' output.

Frank Dekervel
2001-10-30T11:32:42Z

hello,

since i saw strange things happening with my free memory numbers, i tried
this:
- i compiled and booted a fresh kernel (no proprietary modules, no patches,
just 2.4.14-pre4)
- i did free.

bakvis:~# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 384912 55644 329268 0 3652 29880
-/+ buffers/cache: 22112 362800
Swap: 136512 0 136512

so i have 22 meg used right ?

- i started the daily cron jobs (updatedb and htdig and some minor things
like log rotation)

- i did 'free' again.

bakvis:~# free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 384912 377060 7852 0 29424 125660
-/+ buffers/cache: 221976 162936
Swap: 136512 752 135760

so now there is 220 meg used memory right ?
and the memory is definitely used, because as soon as i start a memory hog
the system hits swap ...

so what am i missing here ?
should i provide more info about my kernel configuration ? vmstat numbers ?

greetings,
Frank