ESIX questions

[Piercarlo Grandi]

On 28 Nov 90 04:29:07 GMT, mschedlb at hawk.ulowell.edu (Martin J.
Schedlbauer) said:

mschedlb> 2. I have recently upgraded my system to 16Mb on a 386-25
mschedlb> motherboard.  Esix correctly recognizes that memory as
mschedlb> reported by memsize. However, if I do a 'sar -r 5 600' it
mschedlb> shows freemem = 2803 (which per System V's 2k page frame
mschedlb> equals less than 6MB of memory). Where did the rest of the
mschedlb> memory go? I expected about 12-13 Mb after kernel and data
mschedlb> areas are allocated.

two corrections: the page size is 4KB; as usual, free memory is not
memory that is free, but ememory that is not part of any swapped in
working set, i.e. inactive pages. It should, on a well configured system,
fairly small, and oscillate around the high water mark you have
configured. If you have too much 'free' memory, this means that you have
too much memory.

If you want to know how much pageable memory you have, look at one of
the first lines when booting; there is also, under u386mon, a field
that teels you that.

I think that the definition of 'free' (uncomitted) memory should go in
the FAQ, because alot of people seem to be confused by assuming it is
unallocated memory, which usually it is not.
--
Piercarlo Grandi                   | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
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