FREE(1) Linux User's Manual FREE(1) NAME free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system SYNOPSIS free [-b | -k | -m | -g | -h] [-o] [-s delay ] [-c count ] [-a] [-t] [-l] [-V] DESCRIPTION free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap mem- ory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The shared memory column represents the 'Shmem' value. The available mem- ory column represents the 'MemAvailable' value. Options The -b switch displays the amount of memory in bytes; the -k switch (set by default) displays it in kilobytes; the -m switch displays it in megabytes; the -g switch displays it in gigabytes. The -h switch displays all output fields automatically scaled to the shortest (three digit) representation including the unit. That makes the values human readable. The -t switch displays a line containing the totals. The -o switch disables the display of a "buffer adjusted" line. If the -o option is not specified, free subtracts buffer memory from the used memory and adds it to the free memory reported. The -s switch activates continuous polling delay seconds apart. You may actually specify any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is used for microsecond resolution delay times. The -c switch used together with the -s switch interrupts the polling after count repetitions. The -l switch shows detailed low and high memory statistics. The -a switch shows the available memory (if supported by the running kernel and enabled with sysctl -w vm.meminfo_legacy_layout=0 ; shows zero when unsupported or disabled). The produced output is wider than 80 characters. The -V switch displays version information. FILES /proc/meminfo-- memory information SEE ALSO ps(1), slabtop(1), vmstat(8), top(1) AUTHORS Written by Brian Edmonds. Send bug reports to <albert@users.sf.net> Cohesive Systems 20 Mar 1993 FREE(1) |