RAM with 32 bit Linux

[Cluttermagnet]

Hi, all-

I just got a reminder email from an Ebay seller where I got another 4GB of DDR 1G/400 RAM.

He wants, and deserves, his positive feedback. I had socketed 2 out of 4 sticks I got from him.

Today, I checked the other two sticks and all seems OK with them. Linux reports various sizes

of RAM such as 3.3G, 3.475G, and 3.57G. Depends on which utility is doing the reporting.

I strongly suspect this is completely normal behavior- OTOH I would more expect this if I were

running Win7, not so much for Linux. Anyway, what do you all think? Some portion of RAM is

obviously being reserved for- something. I do know BTW there is a ~4GB RAM limit unless

one goes to 64 bit OS and architecture, then it is 8GB (?). Comments?

 

Thanks, Clutter

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Most accurate way to check RAM in Linux...

 

vtel57@ericsbane06~:$ free -t
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4046428 3120152 926276 0 122108 1050864
-/+ buffers/cache: 1947180 2099248
Swap: 3132412 0 3132412
Total: 7178840 3120152 4058688

 

$ man free

 

Have fun.

[securitybreach]

Actually the 32bit ram limit is 3.5gb unless you use a PAE kernel. Anything higher than that requires a 64bit installation. If your machine can do 64bit, then there is no reason not to run it. There are a lot of benefits of running 64bit over 32bit including gain in performance, using over 3.5gb of ram, parallel processing, faster bus, more secure due to buffer overflow protection, etc.

[sunrat]

Standard 32 bit kernel will only see ~4GB RAM. Use a PAE kernel if you have more.

 

Snap, SB.

[securitybreach]

You can also run:

cat /proc/meminfo

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Yes. You get more details with the cat /proc/meminfo command:

 

vtel57@ericsbane06~:$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 4046428 kB
MemFree: 758264 kB
Buffers: 124656 kB
Cached: 1059664 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 2200848 kB
Inactive: 848760 kB
Active(anon): 1826380 kB
Inactive(anon): 71724 kB
Active(file): 374468 kB
Inactive(file): 777036 kB
Unevictable: 16 kB
Mlocked: 16 kB
SwapTotal: 3132412 kB
SwapFree: 3132412 kB
Dirty: 64 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 1865332 kB
Mapped: 255872 kB
Shmem: 32812 kB
Slab: 104624 kB
SReclaimable: 80448 kB
SUnreclaim: 24176 kB
KernelStack: 4008 kB
PageTables: 37704 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 5155624 kB
Committed_AS: 4927680 kB
VmallocTotal: 34359738367 kB
VmallocUsed: 320956 kB
VmallocChunk: 34359390716 kB
AnonHugePages: 555008 kB
DirectMap4k: 134784 kB
DirectMap2M: 4059136 kB
DirectMap1G: 0 kB

 

However, usually you're only concerned with Free, Used, Cached, Swap.

[Cluttermagnet]

Thanks, Guys-

Well, both commands report 3,475,768 total memory. That's with 4 RAM slots populated with 4

DDR 1G/400 RAM sticks. I'm now even more sure all is OK, based on your comments.

This is 32 bit architecture and OS here (Mint 17 Mate). So I give the guy his positive feedback;

I am pretty sure I received four good RAM sticks from him. Not that I've run that RAMtest utility

on them. I don't often run that. Guess I should...

 

Shoelaces untied? All I see are penny slots down there...

 

 

Oh, OK- here is the short version...

 

clutter@clutter-MS-6728 ~ $ free -t
		 total	 used	 free	 shared buffers	 cached
Mem:	 3475768 1332592 2143176	 11704	 94620	 607100
-/+ buffers/cache:	 630872 2844896
Swap:	 1183740		 0 1183740
Total:	 4659508 1332592 3326916
clutter@clutter-MS-6728 ~ $

 

Joe in Accounting gave me the long version. Says I have 48K 'dirty'. Huh?

 

clutter@clutter-MS-6728 ~ $ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal:	    3475768 kB
MemFree:		 2139028 kB
Buffers:		   94664 kB
Cached:		   607340 kB
SwapCached:		    0 kB
Active:		   739980 kB
Inactive:		 478460 kB
Active(anon):	 517348 kB
Inactive(anon):    11008 kB
Active(file):	 222632 kB
Inactive(file):   467452 kB
Unevictable:		   0 kB
Mlocked:			   0 kB
HighTotal:	   2609160 kB
HighFree:	    1663140 kB
LowTotal:		 866608 kB
LowFree:		  475888 kB
SwapTotal:	   1183740 kB
SwapFree:	    1183740 kB
Dirty:			    48 kB
Writeback:			 0 kB
AnonPages:	    516428 kB
Mapped:		    96640 kB
Shmem:			 11928 kB
Slab:			  32488 kB
SReclaimable:	  21520 kB
SUnreclaim:	    10968 kB
KernelStack:	    2672 kB
PageTables:		 6520 kB
NFS_Unstable:		  0 kB
Bounce:			    0 kB
WritebackTmp:		  0 kB
CommitLimit:	 2921624 kB
Committed_AS:    2020388 kB
VmallocTotal:	 122880 kB
VmallocUsed:	   11520 kB
VmallocChunk:	 102156 kB
HardwareCorrupted:	 0 kB
AnonHugePages:    102400 kB
HugePages_Total:	   0
HugePages_Free:	    0
HugePages_Rsvd:	    0
HugePages_Surp:	    0
Hugepagesize:	   2048 kB
DirectMap4k:	   92152 kB
DirectMap2M:	  821248 kB
clutter@clutter-MS-6728 ~ $

Edited August 1, 2014 by Cluttermagnet

[securitybreach]

Why not run a 64bit installation??

[Cluttermagnet]

That's a fair question, but you may not have been keeping track...

Thumbnail sketch- Clutter is intentionally keeping alive and updating various P4-478 towers,

about 8 or 9 of them, and in addition, about 3-4 others of the P2/P3 era. It's a hobby...

 

And in fact I keep my very first 'PC era' computer running, a 486-66 bought used in 1996.

Sentimental value, you know... Don't use any more- I fire it up every 2-3 years or so.

Windows 95- wow! Heh!

 

But I do own or maintain 2 machines that are 64bit, soon to be 3 as I add a Dell Precision

390 acquired on Ebay the past week. So I'm definitely 'gung ho' to be as 64bit as humanly

possible, yet I am strangely compelled to keep the P4-478 stuff alive. Go figure. And indeed,

this past 6 weeks or so I spent a little money to acquire some new (used) MSI mobos, now

totalling 4, that support P4-478 up to pretty much its limits at 3.4/3.6GHz. And various

other gadgets, mainly DVDRW and more memory. Oh, and a few more P4-478 CPU's

which are getting dirt cheap now.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Cluttermagnet

[securitybreach]

I have been following your posts but I figured if you had 4gb of ram installed, then you had a newer machine that could support 64bit installs.

[Cluttermagnet]

Got it. Nope, all my P4-478 boxes are 32 bit. Every 64 bit machine I have access to is using DDR2 or newer.

Heck, 2G is probably all I need on those older boxen anyway. This was more of a mental exercise.

I just needed to test those other two 1G sticks quickly.

Edited August 1, 2014 by Cluttermagnet

[Guest LilBambi]

Most accurate way to check RAM in Linux...

 

vtel57@ericsbane06~:$ free -t
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 4046428 3120152 926276 0 122108 1050864
-/+ buffers/cache: 1947180 2099248
Swap: 3132412 0 3132412
Total: 7178840 3120152 4058688

 

$ man free

 

Have fun.

 

Even easier to read (-h for Human readable) is to use:

 

free -t -h

 

It showed my Debian Desktop as:

 

Mem:

1.8G Total

1.7G Used

.96 Free

 

It shows it in the same format that Eric posted. Just easier to read in GB than kilobytes/kB.

Edited August 1, 2014 by LilBambi

[Hedon James]

thanks for that cool trick with "free"! FYI, not quite the same in Ubuntu, FWIW, as using the -h flag gave an invalid error and showed this for Ubuntu users:

 

usage: free [-b|-k|-m|-g] [-l] [-o] [-t] [-s delay] [-c count] [-V]

-b,-k,-m,-g show output in bytes, KB, MB, or GB

-l show detailed low and high memory statistics

-o use old format (no -/+buffers/cache line)

-t display total for RAM + swap

-s update every [delay] seconds

-c update [count] times

-V display version information and exit

 

So Ubuntu users need to type

free -t -g

to accomplish the same thing, in human readable format in GBs. Still very cool tool! Thanks VT & Bambi!

[Guest LilBambi]

I hate it when a distro goes off and changes standard stuff like that. ....sigh...

 

Thanks for posting how to get it on Ubuntu.

[Hedon James]

if it's any consolation, I only use Ubuntu and I learned the "free" tool on Ubuntu, so that is "standard" to me?!

[securitybreach]

Even easier to read (-h for Human readable) is to use:

 

free -t -h

 

It showed my Debian Desktop as:

 

Mem:

1.8G Total

1.7G Used

.96 Free

 

It shows it in the same format that Eric posted. Just easier to read in GB than kilobytes/kB.

 

Odd mine shows 1gb less than I have

 

[Guest LilBambi]

ROFL! (That was for Hedon)

 

Actually I think that Free has changed across the boards and yours is the norm now.

 

But Debian still uses an additional stop likely from the old ways of using -h for human readable for many commands that give results in kB or bytes as well as human readable MB and/or GB as appropriate. Likely just not deprecated in Debian Stable (Wheezy).

 

http://www.linfo.org/free.html

 

http://www.linuxnix....-linuxunix.html

 

http://www.tecmint.c...x-free-command/

 

Interesting. Does it show total correctly elsewhere? (Josh)

Edited August 1, 2014 by LilBambi

[Guest LilBambi]

Maybe that is why they deprecated -h for free?

 

What is your result if you use free -t -g?

[securitybreach]

Interesting. Does it show total correctly elsewhere? (Josh)

 

Everywhere else it shows up correct. Here is my meminfo: http://ix.io/dHq

[Guest LilBambi]

16399140 kB

 

Looks right there in your info file for sure.

 

Did you also test to see if correct amount if you use free -t -g as noted in the same posting?

 

It could be just the free -t -h or it could be free command in general. Just wanted to be sure which it is. If it is just the ones using -h, that could answer why they stopped using it. If it also is incorrect using free -t -g then it could be that free is useless for more than a quick look (knowing it's not gonna be accurate).

[securitybreach]

[Guest LilBambi]

Wow! Free with no stops/arguments works right.

 

Can you repeat that without -t ?

 

free -h

 

free -g

[securitybreach]

Same thing:

 

 

Off to work..

[Guest LilBambi]

Have a great shift.

 

I think unless you use Free with NO arguments then it is not a trustworthy tool.

 

I will only use it as free, alone, or not at all.

[Cluttermagnet]

I tried Fran's method in Terminal:

 

clutter@clutter-P4S55FX:~$ free -t -h
		 total	 used	 free	 shared buffers	 cached
Mem:		 1.5G	 981M	 527M	 7.0M	 110M	 445M
-/+ buffers/cache:	 424M	 1.1G
Swap:		 2.0G		 0B	 2.0G
Total:	 3.5G	 981M	 2.5G
clutter@clutter-P4S55FX:~$

 

This is on one of my mid+ performance level P4-478 towers over at 'Rancho Clutter'.

Asrock P4S55FX+ with 1.5G DDR1 RAM. Will try these commands a bunch more

times on various other towers until I have them memorized. My memory is still OK but

the search and retrieval are getting a little fuzzy. A Northwood 2.4GHz on this one, BTW.

It will get upgraded. I now have a spare Northwood 3.2 GHz to throw in there...

 

Oh, Linux Mint 17 Mate on this 32 bit box. Mint and Ubuntu continue to diverge, I guess.

Edited August 2, 2014 by Cluttermagnet

[raymac46]

It's nice that Linux gives us choices. I just upgraded my friend's machine to Linux Mint 17. He's got one of those low end Dell Optiplex units that seem to go on forever. This one is a 210L from 2006 that is a refugee from his daughter's office.

It has a Socket 775 mobo and won't run any sort of dual core CPU. Maximum memory is 2 GB. Onboard Intel video sucks, and no PCI-e slot nor room for a video upgrade. All he wants to do is get email and surf the Web.

Without Linux this would be a landfill candidate. However 32 bit MATE Linux Mint makes it a good machine. I told him the new O/S is good for 5 years but after that it might be time to get something new.

As for me - quad core APU, SSD, 16 GB RAM - I use 64 bit Cinnamon. It's all good.

Edited August 2, 2014 by raymac46