Linux Format forums

Re: Memory

nelz — Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:40 pm

Author: nelz

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 1:40 pm

Maybe, but free is more informative than either as it differentiates between memory used by applications and that used by buffers and caches. It is the latter that improves performance on Linux, whereas filling up all your RAM with the former kills performance.

Re: Memory

bobthebob1234 — Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:58 am

Author: bobthebob1234

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:58 am

htop is prettier...

Re: Memory

Ben — Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:00 am

Author: Ben

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 11:00 am

The command 'top' is your friend here. It will show you how the system resources are being used including how much memory is currently free, and how much load is on the processors (and which programs are using them). If you've got plenty of memory free under normal usage, then adding a bit more won't make any difference.

Ben

Re: Memory

lok1950 — Thu Apr 19, 2012 12:23 am

Author: lok1950

Posted: Thu Apr 19, 2012 12:23 am

Linux does tend to use all resources efficiently not just memory the main issue with Windows memory usage is that memory that has been released by a process is not always returned to available free memory so memory scrubbing apps running all the time have been the norm.Win7 is much better than previous versions but still not as efficient as the Linux kernel

Enjoy the Choice

Re: Memory

dhester — Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:54 pm

Author: dhester

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 11:54 pm

I decided to put the extra memory in the linux machine (32bit Mont 12) as I am going to replace the broken computer with a new motherboard which uses different memory anyway.

From my initial test the extra memory does not seam to make any difference, from my previous experience if this had been a windows machine it would have made a significant difference.

Does this mean Linux is memory efficient?

Re: Memory

wyliecoyoteuk — Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:54 pm

Author: wyliecoyoteuk

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:54 pm

Depends what you are using it for really, Linux generally uses less resources, and swaps to disk less than Windows anyway.

Re: Memory

ajgreeny — Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:46 pm

Author: ajgreeny

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 10:46 pm

2GB of ram should be more than enough for a 32bit Linux OS, but if it is a 64bit OS it may show some worthwhile improvement in speed with the higher amount, of course.

Memory

dhester — Wed Apr 18, 2012 5:22 pm

Author: dhester

Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2012 5:22 pm

Does increasing the size of physical memory have the same impact on performance as it does in windows.

One of my computers has stopped working and I am thinking instead of trying to get it working again to put the components into one of the other computers running linux.

The machine I am thinking of upgrading has 2Gig of memory at present and I have another 2 gig that could go into the machine.

Would this improve the linux performance?