RAM Map

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yogi
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RAM Map

Post by yogi »

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Gary
You and I have had a few discussions about RAM. One of the mysteries about it is exactly why more is better. I still don't know why, but now I have a picture of exactly what is saved to RAM. It's a bit more than what I expected. Here is a map of my 16GB.
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Kellemora
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Re: RAM Map

Post by Kellemora »

I have something sorta similar as a part of the System Monitor.
If I got to Processes, it shows which are running, which are sleeping, and what are in RAM so they load instantly.

Not to long ago, I compared the Processes held in RAM between the machine with 2 gigs and the one with 16 gigs.
You almost have to do this while you are running a program that makes heavy loads to see the big differences.
On the 16 gig, everything stays on the page. While on the 2 gig, only those things being used stay on the page.
Or to put it this way, they are less than sleeping, they are gone from the Memory page entirely, no numbers there.
At least I figured out why it didn't use the Swap File. It just released the memory used by something else that was sleeping to give it to the active process. Trouble is, when doing something intensive, there are one heck of a lot of active processes going on at once, hi hi...

Neat chart and does explain a lot about RAM usage!
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yogi
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Re: RAM Map

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Sysinternals has a lot of neat little apps for Windows. It's way more than I want to know most of the time, but this mapping of RAM was interesting to me. I've seen the resource monitor in Linux but never saw memory broken down this way. It's probably there but I've not been adventurous enough to find it.
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Kellemora
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Re: RAM Map

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I keep my system monitor running in the top panel all the time on all of my computers. I can have it display five or six things, but only have it display three things. Processor use (this is handy to know when a process has finished), Memory use, which shows how much is permanent memory, program and cache memory, not page swap memory, which is never used. The other box shows network activity, inbound and outbound (this can be handy if you are running a backup program in the background and want to know when it's done).
Opening the system monitor allows you to see what is running, what is sleeping, and how much memory is being used by each.
It was confusing to me at first, because it would show something sleeping that I knew was running.
For example: When I just opened the system monitor and took a look, it showed the system monitor as running, but Google Chrome sleeping, which it is open and running because I'm here. But if I check the longer version it shows it is running in the background while I have the system monitor open causing it to show running.
Now if I open the system monitor with the keep on top button clicked, and come back here, then it shows both of them as running, along with several other things while I'm typing. Even things that are shown as sleeping, their memory usage numbers may go down like if I open the link of the photography image you posted. Probably because I have a lot of stuff in cache between the times I reboot which brings everything back down to zero usage again, then as I use things, it puts them back in permanent memory.
It's all Greek to me, and most confuzzling, hi hi...
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yogi
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Re: RAM Map

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I think you and I were looking at two different things. There is a utility built into Linux where the system processes may be monitored. It has three tabs showing all the details of the processes running, resources (graphs showing CPU, memory/swap, and Network history) and a tab for file systems. That last tab simply tells me how much of my total disk space is being used. The command line said I'd have to install the plasma desktop in order to use the system monitor program. So I did that and a lot of software was installed, most of which is useless. I started the system monitor app and got a nice display listing all the process details, but it was pretty much the same as the embedded Linux utility process tab. I suppose if you need two tables displayed at once that is the way to go. The tabbed version works well enough for me. Be that all as it may, I did not see any RAM memory maps anywhere in Linux. I'm using Ubuntu so that maybe that's the problem. I do have Mint installed somewhere so that I could see what is there, but I don't expect much difference.
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Kellemora
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Re: RAM Map

Post by Kellemora »

I'm using the MATE Developers version of System Monitor.
Like most it has the tabs for Processor, Memory, Network, Swap File, Load, and Hard Drive.
But if you open them, they are setting for what you want to see.
Under Memory: It shows User, Shared, Buffers, Cached, and Free.
I'm not 100% certain, but I imagine this to be the RAM memory, because you see the CPU's cache under the Processor tab.

I tried to copy the page to post the output here, but there is no option to copy. I could do a screen shot, but then I would have to upload that to my website host in order to repost it here.
The System Monitor display boxes show more using the Mate Developers version than using the Benoit Dejean version found on most Linux computers. The normal version only shows three things in each window, while the mate version shows five things in each window. Using different colors for each item you choose to display in the tiny window.
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yogi
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Re: RAM Map

Post by yogi »

Thanks Gary. I see what you are doing. I have MATE installed, as well as a few other distros, but I don't use any of the SDK software. I have enough trouble trying to figure out the standard desktop without going into developer mode. I'd be surprised if there were not some third party software I could use to examine the system, but it would all be for curiosity sake. I have no real need to know much about Linux. Windows, now, is another story. :mrgreen:
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Kellemora
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Re: RAM Map

Post by Kellemora »

I used to have a copy of a Windows XP servicing program I got from a computer repair shop.
It would tell everything there was to tell about what was going on inside, even though I didn't understand most of what it reported.
It had a couple of features I liked and those were basically all I ever used.
It would also do a printout of the computer hardware and specs, which is what the service shop used for old computers they were selling. It showed the CPU, RAM, OS, and other things about the computer hardware.
I used it mainly to test the RAM and Graphics when something stopped working right.
Later, you could go on-line to a place that checked your computer and gave a printout of what was in it.
Can't remember the name of the program, or the on-line place anymore, heck than was a decade ago now.
One cannot trust going to websites these days anymore and give them access to your computer, hi hi...
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