[straightv6]

If I'm reading this right it says i'm using ~510MB RAM. Is there a reason why firefox is using so much?

top - 00:10:38 up 12 days, 12:26, 2 users, load average: 0.18, 0.16, 0.06
Tasks: 58 total, 1 running, 53 sleeping, 4 stopped, 0 zombie
Cpu(s): 3.3% user, 2.0% system, 0.0% nice, 94.7% idle
Mem: 515468k total, 509048k used, 6420k free, 42776k buffers
Swap: 2008084k total, 1808k used, 2006276k free, 358968k cached

PID USER PR NI VIRT RES SHR S %CPU %MEM TIME+ COMMAND
30736 ljcharb 18 0 50420 49m 15m S 2.6 9.8 2:13.80 firefox-bin
30688 root 16 0 153m 26m 5076 S 1.3 5.2 1:47.00 X
31052 ljcharb 15 0 1052 1052 824 R 1.0 0.2 0:03.28 top
31054 ljcharb 13 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.7 2.7 0:00.36 xmms
1 root 8 0 92 88 64 S 0.0 0.0 0:04.44 init
2 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:01.34 keventd
3 root 19 19 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:02.91 ksoftirqd_CPU0
4 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 2:32.74 kswapd
5 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:04.78 bdflush
6 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:37.00 kupdated
10 root -1 -20 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 mdrecoveryd
11 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 kreiserfsd
68 root 9 0 356 332 276 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.13 syslogd
71 root 9 0 276 264 264 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.04 klogd
131 root 8 0 132 96 96 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 udevd
248 root 9 0 0 0 0 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.02 khubd
275 root 9 0 352 300 300 S 0.0 0.1 9:37.74 dhcpcd
1921 root 9 0 256 208 208 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 inetd
1925 root 9 0 512 260 260 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.33 sshd
1933 root 8 0 376 352 320 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.13 crond
1936 root 9 0 988 524 376 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.18 sendmail
1939 smmsp 9 0 860 452 344 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.04 sendmail
1947 root 9 0 416 412 384 S 0.0 0.1 0:12.12 gpm
1951 root 9 0 300 256 256 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 agetty
1952 root 9 0 300 256 256 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 agetty
1953 root 9 0 300 256 256 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.00 agetty
1954 root 9 0 300 256 256 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.01 agetty
2214 root 8 0 280 96 96 S 0.0 0.0 0:00.03 vsftpd
30317 ljcharb 9 0 1668 1668 1176 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.07 bash
30674 root 9 0 476 476 428 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.02 agetty
30675 ljcharb 9 0 1252 1252 968 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.03 startx
30687 ljcharb 9 0 648 648 556 S 0.0 0.1 0:00.01 xinit
30693 ljcharb 9 0 1248 1248 1144 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 sh
30698 ljcharb 9 0 1220 1220 1116 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 sh
30700 ljcharb 9 0 2060 2060 1560 S 0.0 0.4 0:00.84 xscreensaver
30702 ljcharb 9 0 932 932 732 S 0.0 0.2 0:00.00 ssh-agent
30705 ljcharb 9 0 4220 4220 3412 S 0.0 0.8 0:01.70 xfce4-session
30708 ljcharb 9 0 5036 5036 3908 S 0.0 1.0 0:01.65 xfce-mcs-manage
30711 ljcharb 11 0 5928 5928 4872 S 0.0 1.2 0:04.37 xfwm4
30713 ljcharb 9 0 5948 5948 4808 S 0.0 1.2 0:01.77 xftaskbar4
30715 ljcharb 9 0 5440 5440 4320 S 0.0 1.1 0:01.47 xfdesktop
30717 ljcharb 9 0 7532 7528 5952 S 0.0 1.5 0:01.98 xfce4-panel
30719 ljcharb 9 0 1296 1296 992 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.03 firefox
30731 ljcharb 9 0 1324 1324 980 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.02 run-mozilla.sh
30738 ljcharb 4 0 50420 49m 15m S 0.0 9.8 0:00.00 firefox-bin
30739 ljcharb 9 0 50420 49m 15m S 0.0 9.8 0:01.06 firefox-bin
30741 ljcharb 9 0 50420 49m 15m S 0.0 9.8 0:00.71 firefox-bin
30751 ljcharb 9 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.0 2.7 0:00.97 xmms
30752 ljcharb 9 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.0 2.7 0:00.00 xmms
30753 ljcharb 9 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.0 2.7 0:00.00 xmms
30754 ljcharb 9 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.0 2.7 0:00.01 xmms
31028 ljcharb 9 0 3344 3344 2228 S 0.0 0.6 0:01.14 xterm
31030 ljcharb 9 0 1576 1576 1108 S 0.0 0.3 0:00.04 bash
31037 ljcharb 9 0 720 720 464 T 0.0 0.1 0:00.00 man
31040 ljcharb 9 0 1152 1152 1068 T 0.0 0.2 0:00.01 sh
31041 ljcharb 8 0 1200 1200 1112 T 0.0 0.2 0:00.01 sh
31046 ljcharb 9 0 852 852 672 T 0.0 0.2 0:00.02 less
31053 ljcharb 9 0 14076 13m 5512 S 0.0 2.7 0:00.03 xmms

[popey]

Modern os's work on the principle that unused ram is wasted ram, in fact, using very little memory probably indicates a problem and is certainly not very efficient.

[digital-angel]

512mb ram should be more than enough to run linux though. If you consider running servers, then you should consider adding more RAM. I get some of the same output when using top and i kinda wondering about this too sometimes, but 512 should be more than enough actually.

[horndude]

use the free command, top doesnt separate actual RAM or swap usage with whats cached

[straightv6]

this is what it came back with. i guess if it doesn't matter i won't worry about it

bash-3.00$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 515468 509804 5664 0 31384 255800
-/+ buffers/cache: 222620 292848
Swap: 2008084 28244 1979840

[horndude]

ya, its barely using any RAM at all, 98% of it is buffered and cached, this is normal

when using "top" look at the memory % used for each application and multiply that times how much RAM you have, you will see that most apps use very very little RAM

its confusing because the windows stats your used to seeing generally dont tell the whole story like in linux, different OS's entirely, linux is very very efficient and stingy about RAM management.........it has to be, its a multiuser OS, its meant to be used by lots of people all at once if needed, windows isnt. This is also why when doing anything CPU intensive with windows it brings the system to a crawl, with linux it slows down a bit but keeps chugging along. For example, rip a DVD under windows and see what happens when you try to do something else at the same time.........it bogs down bigtime. I can rip 2 DVD's at once on my linux box and it barely slows down at all. This is really something that has to be seen, most windows users just wont believe it unless they see it in person.

[digital-angel]

I have seen this, when seen how much memory windows uses compared to linux you can really see a good side with linux and how much stable and better it is.