Questions tagged [ram]

Random-access memory (RAM) is a form of computer data storage. Today, it takes the form of integrated circuits that allow stored data to be accessed in any order with a worst case performance of constant time.

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
345 votes
13 answers
766k views

How can I monitor the memory usage?

I have used top to see the memory usage at the moment. But I would like to monitor the memory usage over a period of time. E.g start monitoring and then execute a few commands, and final stop the ...
Jonas's user avatar
  • 8,187
320 votes
22 answers
484k views

I have 16GB RAM. Do I need 32GB swap?

I read many places that the rule of thumb for swap space is to double the amount of physical RAM. However, 32 GB does seem a LOT. Do I need that much? Do I need it at all with this high amount of ...
Tamás Szelei's user avatar
267 votes
4 answers
717k views

How to check RAM size?

What is the command to find the RAM size in computer? I want to see result in MB.
KonradDos's user avatar
  • 2,951
218 votes
8 answers
313k views

How to find the frequency and type of my current RAM?

How shall I find out the frequency and type of my current RAM? My OS is Ubuntu 12.04.
Tim's user avatar
  • 25.2k
139 votes
5 answers
81k views

Drawbacks of using preload? Why isn't it included by default?

I would like to know what are the drawbacks of using preload? If there would be no downside, preload would be enabled by default, so I guess there are some. Okay you need a bit more RAM, but most ...
Paradiesstaub's user avatar
103 votes
8 answers
82k views

Computer freezing on almost full RAM, possibly disk cache problem

The problem I think is somewhat similar to this thread. It doesn't matter if I have swap enabled or disabled, whenever the real used RAM amount starts going close to maximum and there is almost no ...
Krišjānis Nesenbergs's user avatar
92 votes
4 answers
112k views

command to check RAM slots in motherboard?

I have a Samsung NP300e5Z i5 laptop. I am using Ubuntu 14.04 in this laptop. my system RAM is 4GB and i want to increase it but i am not sure how many memory slots are available in my system. so, how ...
purna ram's user avatar
  • 1,153
89 votes
1 answer
107k views

What is available memory while using free command?

The output of the free command that I fired on my linux host is as belows: free total used free shared buff/cache available Mem: 263846320 47746620 ...
Nishant Lakhara's user avatar
88 votes
8 answers
143k views

How to find how much RAM does my computer have?

How do I find out how much ram my computer has? I am running Ubuntu 13.04.
James's user avatar
  • 3,213
88 votes
2 answers
83k views

zram vs zswap vs zcache Ultimate guide: when to use which one

What the hell are they? how are they different (I've written my understanding in an answer below) In the Zswap system, when a page is evicted from the zswap to the actual swap is it stored in a ...
staticd's user avatar
  • 2,965
83 votes
6 answers
179k views

How to check video memory size?

Is there a way to check the size of the video memory? Specifically, is there one that works accurately for both integrated GPU's as well as PCI/AGP graphics cards? Many integrated GPU's have ...
drgrog's user avatar
  • 2,867
76 votes
8 answers
196k views

How do I find out if I have a swap partition on my hard drive?

I used the 12.04 live cd to install Ubuntu over my Windows 7 partition and deleted everything so I just have Ubuntu on my laptop. But since during the installer I chose the simple "erase entire disk" ...
dswhite85's user avatar
  • 1,204
74 votes
6 answers
312k views

How to check for errors in RAM via Ubuntu?

I have Ubuntu 11 running off a 3.6GB USB flash/stick drive. System has 4GB RAM and blank hard disk (wiped using DBAN tool). How do I check if there are no errors in my RAM? Is there a guaranteed way ...
Deen's user avatar
  • 847
73 votes
12 answers
42k views

Ubuntu is quickly running out of RAM, and my computer is starting to freeze. What command will solve this?

It happens pretty often to me when I am compiling software in the background and suddenly everything starts to slow down and eventually freeze up [if I do nothing], as I have run out of both RAM and ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 12.1k
68 votes
4 answers
35k views

'zeitgeist-fts' always using a lot of memory!

What is zeitgeist-fts?! It's always in the 3 top positions of memory usage (competing with Firefox and Compiz) . After a fresh boot it uses about 30 MB, but after some hours or a day, it goes above ...
Seyed Mohammad's user avatar
63 votes
3 answers
95k views

How do I make a RAM disk?

I want to make a partition that is made of ram ... Example In windows 7 you can make a partition that is made of ram I have created 1 GB of partition in ram . using Primo RamDisk Is there any ...
One Zero's user avatar
  • 27.1k
63 votes
4 answers
88k views

How to interpret output of "free -m" command?

The output of free -m is: total used free shared buffers cached Mem: 595 482 112 0 63 324 -/+ buffers/cache: ...
amoooc's user avatar
  • 1,001
62 votes
4 answers
188k views

How do I clean or disable the memory cache?

After the system starts, in a few minutes my memory cache fills up and it starts using the swap. Here's a screenshot of /proc/meminfo. However, if I can disable this process / clean the cache once ...
Bharadwaj Srigiriraju's user avatar
61 votes
4 answers
165k views

How do I run memtest86+?

If I encounter a situation where I suspect my machine's RAM might be going bad, I might need to launch memtest86+ to check it. How can I do this using Ubuntu? Are there different methods for launching ...
Knowledge Cube's user avatar
53 votes
7 answers
80k views

How to determine where biggest files/directories on my system are stored?

I was wondering how do you know where the largest files in my system are stored. For example--- Disk Space Used: 1GB Java: 500MB Java Percentage: 50% maybe represented in a pie chart. Maybe? I know ...
myusuf3's user avatar
  • 34.2k
52 votes
2 answers
97k views

What is "cached" in the top command?

When running top, I get: top - 09:10:52 up 18:37, 1 user, load average: 1.56, 1.33, 1.15 Tasks: 39 total, 1 running, 38 sleeping, 0 stopped, 0 zombie Cpu(s): 0.1%us, 0.6%sy, 1.0%ni, 92.5%...
KKK's user avatar
  • 623
52 votes
13 answers
326k views

MicroSD card is set to Read-only state. How can I write data on it?

I have a MicroSD card reader in my notebook. When I insert a MicroSD memory card into it, I can't write any data on it - it's read-only. The same thing happens when I try to do it under root. And I ...
Angstrem's user avatar
  • 655
48 votes
1 answer
36k views

What Does Cached Memory Mean when Viewing htop?

While viewing the reports of htop, I would like to know what the orange/brown 'cached memory' bars actually indicate. Really I'm looking for a more practical explanation of what I'm looking at, rather ...
zachd1_618's user avatar
48 votes
1 answer
44k views

How can I find out what RAM a computer system has? [duplicate]

I'm looking for a way to find out what kind of RAM a system has (clocking speed, DDR-X etc.). Is there a specific command for that? I'm only aware of free or lspci which don't offer those things.
qbi's user avatar
  • 19.1k
46 votes
7 answers
89k views

How do I use zRam?

I installed zRam as described on webupd8.org. I installed it from the terminal. Is that all I have to do or do I have to do some configuration or something? Does the zram-enabler do everything by ...
Steiger's user avatar
  • 7,557
42 votes
3 answers
19k views

Prevent Ubuntu from freezing, even if system memory is low

Sometimes I work with huge dumps of data I want to keep in memory for processing. Sometimes I miscalculate the amount of memory my program will produce, or a debugger multiplies the memory usage by a ...
Klamann's user avatar
  • 731
38 votes
2 answers
247k views

How much memory (RAM) should I allocate to the Virtual Machine?

I'm installing Ubuntu in a Virtual Box; my host OS is Windows 7, and I have 6GB of RAM on my system. One tutorial on setting up Ubuntu on a virtual machine (this one, on step 14: http://www.aztcs.org/...
Jay's user avatar
  • 1,053
36 votes
2 answers
30k views

Memory limiting solutions for greedy applications that can crash OS?

I use my computer for scientific programming. It has a healthy 8GB of RAM and 12GB of swap space. Often, as my problems have gotten larger, I exceed all of the available RAM. Rather than crashing (...
Hooked's user avatar
  • 2,363
34 votes
1 answer
15k views

htop showing duplicate applications with very odd bizarre results upwards of 20,30,40 or more, see screen grab

I have attached screen shots of htop and it's bizarre results. Can anyone explain what is happening here? It shows this new copy.com app taking up like 500% of my memory if you count it up.
wardr's user avatar
  • 2,289
33 votes
4 answers
253k views

Why am I frequently getting this "Cannot allocate memory" error?

I'm using Ubuntu 12.10 with Gnome-Classic. I am getting this error frequently and with almost all programs, big and small. When I try to open them, they don't start, and instead I get an error message ...
Questioner's user avatar
  • 6,839
31 votes
3 answers
77k views

What is a segmentation fault?

In Ubuntu I have faced the segmentation fault error many times. What is a segmentation fault and when does it occur?
Tachyons's user avatar
  • 17.3k
28 votes
6 answers
25k views

Why does Ubuntu only show 3GB of RAM?

I have an Asus G50vt-x5 laptop with 4GB of RAM installed. But Ubuntu 10.10 shows only 3GB of RAM. Why is it only showing 3GB of RAM instead of the full 4GB? output of free command is : neal@ubuntu:~$ ...
nebula's user avatar
  • 1,267
26 votes
3 answers
19k views

How to see the actual memory and its properties (slot position, size, speed...)

I have 2 PCs. A Laptop dv600 and an Intel dp35dp. I want a command that shows me how many slots of memory I am using, the size, speed, etc.. For the moment the size of each would be good. Maybe see if ...
Luis Alvarado's user avatar
26 votes
6 answers
110k views

What's the maximum amount of RAM I can use on an specific hardware

I've an Asus U31SD Notebook with an i5-2430M CPU. The Asus site says that the maximum RAM is 8 GB, but Intel's says my CPU supports 16 GB. What is the maximum RAM I can use on this system ...
crond's user avatar
  • 261
25 votes
4 answers
24k views

Google Chrome will take up my memory to the point where it causes my computer to freeze to a near halt. What can I do to prevent this?

It gets so horrible that I can not even switch to TTY1 to force a reboot. I have to hard reset, and I lose work. Ideally, I would like to be able to use the chrome browser on Ubuntu without having to ...
Anon's user avatar
  • 12.1k
25 votes
4 answers
178k views

Running any command returns "Cannot allocate memory" on Ubuntu Server

I’m using Ubuntu 14.04. Recently, when I login via SSH with my user with sudo privileges, every command I run results in a “Cannot allocate memory” error. Here are a few I tried at my console ...
Dave's user avatar
  • 2,095
23 votes
6 answers
16k views

Can you have too much swap?

I was just wondering if you can have a swap partition that is too big. If yes, when is a swap partition too big? What are the downsides/ill-effects of having a swap partition that's too big (even if I ...
An0n's user avatar
  • 2,119
22 votes
3 answers
33k views

How can I limit the CPU and RAM usage for a process?

I'm on a Ubuntu VPS with SFTP and a console. I need a specific process to only use 60% of my CPU and 2048 MB of RAM. I also need that another process only uses 30% of CPU and 1024MB of RAM. How can I ...
newalvaro9's user avatar
22 votes
4 answers
109k views

How to increase the disk space of an Ubuntu VMWare guest, without the cd?

I powered off the VM and on the VMware side increased the allocated disk space. I did this by Edit Virtual Machine Settings -> Hard Disk -> Utilities and so forth. It then warned me that I should ...
Janne's user avatar
  • 221
21 votes
7 answers
14k views

Warning when available RAM approaches zero

This is a follow-up to Memory limiting solutions for greedy applications that can crash OS?: ulimit and cgroups are not user friendly, and besides, wouldn't work with applications that spawn separate ...
Dan Dascalescu's user avatar
21 votes
3 answers
29k views

Gnome-shell is taking a lot of ram

I recently reinstalled ubuntu (about a month ago) and gnome-shell usually uses about 150-300 MB ram but suddenly from the last 2 days, gnome-shell is taking a lot of ram(Even jumps up to 2GB). I only ...
Heisenberg's user avatar
  • 1,626
20 votes
6 answers
82k views

Can't format my usb drive. I have already tried with mkdosfs and gparted

I have a MicroSD card in a USB adapter (which plugs into a USB port on my machine, and acts like a USB flash drive). I was using Unetbootin to make this a bootable USB flash drive with Kubuntu. But I ...
Mauri Olivares's user avatar
20 votes
5 answers
51k views

How can I check my RAM and hard drive for errors?

What tools can I use to check that my memory and hard drive are still working correctly?
vrcmr's user avatar
  • 6,307
20 votes
6 answers
3k views

8 GB RAM on 64 bit processor using 32 bit Ubuntu

I'm going to repeat the title in a longer word. Can a 32 bit Ubuntu address more than 4 gb of RAM on a 64 bit processor?
asdacap's user avatar
  • 201
20 votes
4 answers
16k views

How to fully utilize RAM to increase overall system performance

I have a low profile machine but with a lot of fast RAM, 4 Gb, which is really an amount of memory that i probably will never use, not even an half, since i just use this machine for coding and ...
user1717079's user avatar
20 votes
3 answers
9k views

Why is Unity (Compiz) consuming more and more RAM? [closed]

About 3 to 4 hours after turning on my PC, compiz 'memory usage' rose from 300MB up to 1.5GB! What is happening? What is wrong? Here is the screen-shot from system monitor:
Behzadsh's user avatar
  • 3,903
19 votes
6 answers
33k views

fdisk -l shows 16 ram disks /dev/ram0 ... /ram15

Ever since I upgraded to 15.10, fdisk -l reports 16 ram disks (/dev/ram0 ... /dev/ram15). I'm a bit unsure what those are needed for. Is it safe to delete them? If not, how can I get rid of that fdisk ...
RudiC's user avatar
  • 293
19 votes
2 answers
4k views

Is it possible to query maximum ram my mobo takes?

Is it possible to query through Terminal how much ram my motherboard can take? I'm looking to see if i can even upgrade.
chrisjlee's user avatar
  • 10.8k
19 votes
4 answers
32k views

Automatically kill a process if it exceeds a given amount of RAM

I work on large-scale datasets. When testing new software, a script will sometimes sneak up on me, quickly grab all available RAM, and render my desktop unusable. I'd like a way to set a RAM limit ...
chrisamiller's user avatar
19 votes
1 answer
21k views

Memory Usage statistics different in free and htop

When I run free -m on my command-line, it shows my used memory as show below. When I run htop the used memory shown is very low. Why is that? Is it some other kind of representation? I am new to ...
Tarun Mohandas's user avatar

1
2 3 4 5
33