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Date: Wed, 15 May 2002 11:25:14 -0700 (PDT)
From: Norbert Papke <npapke@acm.org>
To: freebsd-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org
Subject: New FAQ entry for amount of free memory
X-Send-Pr-Version: www-1.0

>Number:         38118
>Category:       docs
>Synopsis:       New FAQ entry for amount of free memory
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    murray
>State:          closed
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:  
>Class:          wish
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Wed May 15 11:30:01 PDT 2002
>Closed-Date:    Sun May 04 21:19:25 PDT 2003
>Last-Modified:  Sun May 04 21:19:25 PDT 2003
>Originator:     Norbert Papke
>Release:        4.6-PRERELEASE
>Organization:
Proven Path
>Environment:
FreeBSD proven.2y.net 4.6-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 4.6-PRERELEASE #11: Tue May 14 16:58:29 PDT 2002     npapke@proven.2y.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/NGP  i386
>Description:
In a recent discussion on comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc John S. Dyson
<dyson@iquest.net> provided the following excellent description of free
memory caclulation.  It should be added to the FAQ, possibly in 
"Chapter 16 - Misc Questions".  I have checked with John and he does
not object to his answers being used in this manner.

Q: How much free memory is available?

A: There are a couple of kinds of 'free memory'.
One kind is the amount of memory immediately available without
paging anything else out.   That is approx the size of cache queue
+ size of free queue (with a derating factor, depending upon system
tuning.)   Another kind of 'free memory ' is the total amount of
VM space.   That can be complex, but is dependent upon the amount
of swap space and memory.   Other kinds of 'free memory' descriptions
are also possible, but it is relatively useless to define these,
but rather it i s important to make sure that the paging rate is
kept low, and to avoid running out of swap space.

>How-To-Repeat:
n/a
>Fix:
      
>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
Responsible-Changed-From-To: freebsd-doc->ceri 
Responsible-Changed-By: ceri 
Responsible-Changed-When: Mon Oct 28 11:11:52 PST 2002 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
This has been overlooked for too long. 
Remind myself to do this. 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=38117 
Responsible-Changed-From-To: freebsd-doc->ceri 
Responsible-Changed-By: ceri 
Responsible-Changed-When: Mon Oct 28 11:11:52 PST 2002 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
I'll take care of this - remind myself. 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=38118 
Responsible-Changed-From-To: ceri->freebsd-doc 
Responsible-Changed-By: ceri 
Responsible-Changed-When: Thu Jan 23 15:38:45 PST 2003 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
Back to the doc team. 

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=38118 
Responsible-Changed-From-To: freebsd-doc->murray 
Responsible-Changed-By: murray 
Responsible-Changed-When: Sun May 4 15:29:49 PDT 2003 
Responsible-Changed-Why:  
I will look at this one. 


http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=38118 
State-Changed-From-To: open->closed 
State-Changed-By: murray 
State-Changed-When: Sun May 4 21:18:25 PDT 2003 
State-Changed-Why:  
I've committed this also to the FAQ.  I added both of these Q&As to 
the system administration chapter, as it seemed slightly more 
appropriate to me than the misc questions, though the FAQ has alwasy 
been rather disorganized. 

Thanks for the excellent submissions! 


http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=38118 
>Unformatted:
