There's a nice thread on the gentoo forum that explains this (and some more)
http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=175419 On 2/10/06, Luke Kendall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > If I run top and hit M to get a listing sorted by memory usage, I see > that 98% of memory is used up, as follows: > > 20% buffers > 20% cached > 23% non 0.0% processes > 1% free > > Where is the missing 36%? > > "Ah!" I think to myself "I have 52 processes other processes using > '0.0%' memory. What if I guess they're each really using 0.049999% > memory...". > > Rats, that only explains another 2.6%. > > Any ideas? I'm stumped. > > $ top --version > top (procps version 2.0.7) > > This is on an old RH 7.2 system using kernel 2.4.28. > > "top" interesting bits: > > 11:13pm up 74 days, 56 min, 1 user, load average: 0.10, 0.04, 0.01 > 84 processes: 77 sleeping, 2 running, 2 zombie, 3 stopped > CPU states: 0.0% user, 0.3% system, 0.0% nice, 99.6% idle > Mem: 255716K av, 251356K used, 4360K free, 0K shrd, 53528K buff > Swap: 265032K av, 237716K used, 27316K free 52428K > cached > > PID USER PRI NI SIZE RSS SHARE STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND > 1273 root 18 0 255M 10M 732 R 0.0 4.3 1012m X > 2451 luke 18 0 13932 8864 2388 S 0.0 3.4 7:21 postilion.exec > 1061 xfs 9 0 16780 7492 336 S 0.0 2.9 0:49 xfs > 17278 stella 9 0 6440 6440 4092 S 0.0 2.5 0:00 postilion.exec > 15573 stella 9 0 6432 6432 4088 S 0.0 2.5 0:17 postilion.exec > 15571 root 9 0 2236 2184 1480 S 0.0 0.8 0:07 sshd > 5937 luke 9 0 12192 2096 1160 S 0.0 0.8 0:00 postilion.exec > 745 ntp 9 0 1924 1924 1732 S 0.0 0.7 0:00 ntpd > 16392 root 9 0 1644 1644 1256 S 0.0 0.6 0:00 fetchmail > 17160 stella 9 0 1416 1412 400 S 0.0 0.5 0:00 ispell > 1290 luke 9 0 1868 1344 684 S 0.0 0.5 2:06 wmaker > 18057 luke 9 0 2948 1164 428 S 0.0 0.4 105:16 smbd > 17321 luke 18 0 968 968 756 R 0.1 0.3 0:00 top > 1309 luke 9 0 1108 944 644 S 0.0 0.3 0:02 bash > 5918 luke 9 0 1356 808 368 S 0.0 0.3 0:00 ispell > 1307 luke 9 0 936 724 428 S 0.0 0.2 0:01 bash > 1295 luke 9 0 1948 648 296 S 0.0 0.2 0:07 wterm > 1296 luke 9 0 1956 640 352 S 0.0 0.2 0:09 wterm > 625 rpcuser 9 0 664 568 564 S 0.0 0.2 0:00 rpc.statd > 1084 root 9 0 880 564 428 S 0.0 0.2 0:04 nmbd > 572 root 9 0 608 552 512 S 0.0 0.2 0:03 syslogd > 15901 root 9 0 508 508 436 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 portsentry > 577 root 9 0 1352 496 452 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 klogd > 15897 root 9 0 492 492 420 S 0.0 0.1 0:01 portsentry > 597 rpc 9 0 572 488 484 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 portmap > 800 root 9 0 452 440 252 S 0.0 0.1 0:13 smartd > 1297 luke 9 0 584 428 328 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 xcb > 947 root 8 0 848 424 308 S 0.0 0.1 0:06 sendmail > 10423 luke 9 0 668 420 300 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 wterm > 818 root 9 0 528 400 336 S 0.0 0.1 0:04 sshd > 1299 luke 9 0 468 364 260 S 0.0 0.1 45:07 wmmail > 1079 root 9 0 688 296 208 S 0.0 0.1 0:00 smbd > 874 lp 8 0 360 252 208 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 lpd > 10424 luke 8 0 592 240 236 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 bash > 1298 luke 9 0 296 228 176 S 0.0 0.0 0:10 wmclock > 852 root 9 0 328 140 136 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 xinetd > 10616 luke 9 0 220 132 92 S 0.0 0.0 0:03 asmixer > 985 root 9 0 172 116 76 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 crond > 903 root 9 0 200 112 108 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rpc.rquotad > 533 root 9 0 168 108 104 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty > 1142 root 8 0 136 80 60 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rhnsd > 1 root 8 0 120 72 52 S 0.0 0.0 0:06 init > 1121 daemon 9 0 104 44 32 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 atd > 1087 root 9 0 456 36 32 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 nmbd > 1764 root 9 0 156 28 24 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 rpc.mountd > 1201 root 9 0 268 20 16 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 login > 1203 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty > 1204 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty > 1205 root 9 0 76 16 12 S 0.0 0.0 0:00 mingetty > [... the remaining 35 0.0%-memory using process omitted] > > I also notice that if I start 5 galeon browser windows, I get 6 galeon > processes each using 34.4% memory (another 200% memory used). > > The man page for top says "%MEM The task's share of the physical memory". > > None of these numbers add up, for me! Even if I assume the man page is > wrong, and it should say "%MEM The task's share of the physical memory, > except when the process that's listed is sharing memory with others." > > Puzzled, > > luke > > -- > SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ > Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html > -- Menno Schaaf aka ginji irc.austnet.org #gentoo #linux-help -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
