free is a command to view various memory stats.
The command free is used to show various memory statistics including:
Total memory
Used memory
Free memory
Shared memory
Buffers
etc.
See man free for more information.
Questions tagged [free]
59 questions
101
votes
1 answer
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 3290072 1140808 212809628 214382420
Swap: …
Nishant Lakhara
- 1,113
34
votes
1 answer
What do the changes in `free` output from 14.04 to 16.04 mean?
I noticed that the free command reporting has changed somewhere between Trusty and Xenial. Here is what `free -m' shows on one of my Trusty computers:
$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: …
otus
- 873
12
votes
4 answers
Check available memory in Linux
I am writing a Python script which downloads 4K videos and plays them on request. When my device memory goes above 7.2 GB it deletes the video with the least number of views.
Using the free command or top command I can get the memory information.…
ron123456
- 353
9
votes
1 answer
General way to monitor ALL memory usages
I have Kubuntu 16.04 and am using ZFS.
As you can see on superuser, I just had a long journey in tracking down where my memory was vanishing to.
It turned out to be the ARC of ZFS that was eating it up without showing up anywhere in the tools/files…
Torge
- 261
8
votes
3 answers
Swap priority gets set to -1 on each boot
I have a swap partition of size 7.9 GB.
When I use the command free, it shows this:
NAME TYPE SIZE USED PRIO
/dev/sda7 partition 7.9G 0B -1
The swap partition is not being used and its priority is set to a negative value (which maybe…
axolotl
- 1,232
5
votes
2 answers
Need help to interpret output of free command
I would appreciate help in interpreting the output of 'free -m' below.
-bash-4.2$ free -m
total used free shared buff/cache available
Mem: 15793 7112 88 7840 8591 …
5
votes
2 answers
How to get a good overview of RAM usage
I have installed Ubuntu 14.10 on a server. The server main task is running a MongoDB installation along with several NodeJS applications. The NodeJS applications will run continuously and will accept requests from outside.
Every now and then large…
Mathyn
- 253
4
votes
1 answer
Ubuntu 16 - Free command Buffer/cache difference
I believe there's difference between buffer and cache memory. In ubuntu i see them clubbed together. Does ubuntu treat buffer and cache differently ?
In my case available memory is very low and I am trying to investigate what's consuming so much…
4
votes
2 answers
How to use free -m to get memory usage for all users
I typed the free command to get the memory usage as follows :
free -m
output:
I want to use this command to get the same info but for all users for example :
I used this command .. because it easy for me .. to store its output in a variables in…
Akari
- 481
3
votes
0 answers
Problem downloading "not free" programs from Ubuntu Software Center
I bought "Quick 'n Easy Web Builder" in Ubuntu Software Center on 15 march, 2013 and it worked OK after unlocking it with my license key.
Now I have replaced my computer (with Ubuntu 12.04LTS) but I cannot download the program anymore: when I try…
user248163
- 39
3
votes
1 answer
why is /usr/bin/free opening liblzma?
I see the following when running strace free:
hans@devad22:~$ strace free 2>&1 | grep openat
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/etc/ld.so.cache", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) = 3
openat(AT_FDCWD, "/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libprocps.so.8", O_RDONLY|O_CLOEXEC) =…
hanshenrik
- 565
- 1
- 6
- 21
3
votes
2 answers
Ubuntu 20.04 : failure extract
System inflates hard drive when it try failure extract some rar files. system cannot be reboot because there is no free space
mumin16
- 31
2
votes
1 answer
What shared in free -mh command
I am trying to understand the output of the free -hm command. I know about the columns other than "shared". Shared is taking up 50% of my RAM and I couldnt find much relevant info on it what it is and what it does. I am running ubuntu 16.10.
It will…
blackbug
- 323
2
votes
1 answer
Alternative to Teamviewer
I need an advise about alternative app for Teamviewer. For me is important to have such features like:
Ability to control PCs remotely
Switching sides to control each
other PCs
Ability to talk in the meantime
Very easy to setup
Free and likely…
zhukovgreen
- 619
2
votes
1 answer
why does free command show more memory usage than other tools
When I use free -h -l command I see 1.8G in use where system monitor app shows me 1.1G in use.
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 1.8G 1.7G 161M 245M 67M 553M
Low: …
user222368
- 53
- 6