virtually no free memory left on buildworld

[Anton Shterenlikht]

On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 09:35:02AM -0800, Mel Flynn wrote:
> On Wednesday 29 July 2009 09:24:31 Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > I just installed new 4GB RAM in ia64 rx2600 box.
> > On make -j8 buildworld I see with "top -PISu":
> >
> >
> > last pid: 69791;  load averages:  8.42,  8.44,  8.59    up 0+02:04:49 
> > 18:18:17 154 processes: 11 running, 125 sleeping, 18 waiting
> > CPU 0: 88.8% user,  0.0% nice, 11.0% system,  0.1% interrupt,  0.0% idle
> > CPU 1: 92.5% user,  0.0% nice,  7.4% system,  0.0% interrupt,  0.0% idle
> > Mem: 856M Active, 2414M Inact, 492M Wired, 136M Cache, 417M Buf, 17M Free
> > Swap: 2048M Total, 2048M Free
> 
> Good, 2G of filesystem information cached and no swap used. Think of free 
> memory as wasted memory.

ok, so I completely misunderstood free and inactive.
Where can I read more on this (active, inactive, wired, cashe, buf, free)?
The top man page doesn't explain these memory states.

many thanks

-- 
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233 
Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423