1FREE(1) Linux User's Manual FREE(1)
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6 free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system
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9 free [-b | -k | -m | -g | -h] [-o] [-s delay ] [-c count ] [-a] [-t]
10 [-l] [-V]
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13 free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap mem‐
14 ory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The
15 shared memory column represents the 'Shmem' value. The available mem‐
16 ory column represents the 'MemAvailable' value.
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18 Options
19 The -b switch displays the amount of memory in bytes; the -k switch
20 (set by default) displays it in kilobytes; the -m switch displays it in
21 megabytes; the -g switch displays it in gigabytes.
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23 The -h switch displays all output fields automatically scaled to the
24 shortest (three digit) representation including the unit. That makes
25 the values human readable.
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27 The -t switch displays a line containing the totals.
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29 The -o switch disables the display of a "buffer adjusted" line. If the
30 -o option is not specified, free subtracts buffer memory from the used
31 memory and adds it to the free memory reported.
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33 The -s switch activates continuous polling delay seconds apart. You may
34 actually specify any floating point number for delay, usleep(3) is used
35 for microsecond resolution delay times.
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37 The -c switch used together with the -s switch interrupts the polling
38 after count repetitions.
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40 The -l switch shows detailed low and high memory statistics.
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42 The -a switch shows the available memory (if supported by the running
43 kernel and enabled with sysctl -w vm.meminfo_legacy_layout=0 ; shows
44 zero when unsupported or disabled). The produced output is wider than
45 80 characters.
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47 The -V switch displays version information.
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50 /proc/meminfo-- memory information
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54 ps(1), slabtop(1), vmstat(8), top(1)
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58 Written by Brian Edmonds.
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60 Send bug reports to <albert@users.sf.net>
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65Cohesive Systems 20 Mar 1993 FREE(1)