Other Help Topics :: asmem memory disply inacurate?



When asmem is run with the -asis option, showing the used memory percentage instead of free percentage, there is a disparity. I have 512megs of memory, and 418 megs or 81% free, yet with the option, it is 57% used. Has this program been updated lately?
i'd suggest dumping the whole shebang and getting something integrated like gkrellm, which when stripped down might make a smaller footprint than 4 different little widgets.  It would definitely be 'cleaner' and have a 'new' look to it.  the dockapps are a bit hideous in my opinion.  gkrellm has all the capabilities that those 4 do, and could be skinned to match the new DSL theme, like xmms and flux.  (yes i know there's a gkrellm.dsl)
It's probably displaying cached memory in with the "57% used" portion.  I'd say that the "81% free" is the accurate reading of actually free physical ram.

Try using the "free" command in a terminal to see the difference between what is actually being used and what is used when including cache & buffers.  Your cached memory is there storing stuff from previously-used applications, for quick retrieval if necessary.  If that ram is needed for something else it will immediately be freed.
Okay, ran free and I see a whole lot wrong with the asmem program, from atleast an astetics point of view. The default command shows used amount of memory but free amount percentage, as calculated from asmem:
asmem: 370476 71%
The -used option shows as calulated by asmem:
asmem -used: 1448856 28%
Now the -asis option shows the values as read from device:
asmem -asis: 122760 25%
-Used -Asis shows the used memory values as read from device:
asmem -used -asis: 382572 74%

It also takes a long time for the non -asis values to become correct.

Free reads:
dsl@box:~$ free
             total         used         free       shared      buffers
Mem:    515332    382632   132700          0         3948
Swap:       0              0             0
Total:    515332    382632   132700

So now I run it as:
asmem -used -asis -withdrawn -bg black -fg red -memory red &>/dev/null &

The default launch for this chould be changed to this for the next version of DSL, imho, because -used -asis is more accurate and would show a better representation of the bar in asmem (which, if I recall correctly, used to switch around what was shown on the little bar when the different options were used, but doesn't now)

---
dsl 1.5

original here.