From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id ; Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:40:50 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id ; Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:40:49 -0400 Received: from uisge.3dlabs.com ([193.133.230.45]:9415 "EHLO uisge.3dlabs.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id ; Fri, 26 Apr 2002 07:40:48 -0400 Date: Fri, 26 Apr 2002 12:34:59 +0100 From: Paul Sargent To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Machine not freeing Cached Memory? Message-ID: <20020426113459.GH9968@3dlabs.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.28i Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Hi There, I'm having some VM problems. I wonder if anybody can help. I've got a box here that currently reports.... holly:~/linux-2.4.14# free -tm total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3021 1041 1980 0 4 885 -/+ buffers/cache: 151 2870 Swap: 3905 126 3779 Total: 6927 1167 5759 As you can see, it's a 3G physical RAM box. Currently it's sitting there with 885MB of Memory labeled as Cache, but if I run a process which requires lots of memory, then the system seems to prefer swapping, rather than freeing up the cache memory. For example... total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 3021 3019 2 0 1 845 -/+ buffers/cache: 2172 849 Swap: 3905 488 3417 Total: 6927 3508 3419 Yes, some 40MB of cache gets freed, but it's mainly (300MB) of swap that gets used. This tends to slow down processes before they need to because the machine is thrashing (and I mean really hammering) swap. Anyone got any ideas? Kernel is 2.4.14, and it's a debian woody installation. Is a later version of 2.4 likly to help me here? Cheers Paul -- Paul Sargent mailto: Paul.Sargent@3Dlabs.com