| .\" -*-Nroff-*- |
| .\" This page Copyright (C) 1993 Matt Welsh, mdw@sunsite.unc.edu. |
| .\" Freely distributable under the terms of the GPL |
| .TH FREE 1 "20 Mar 1993 " "Cohesive Systems" "Linux User's Manual" |
| .SH NAME |
| free \- Display amount of free and used memory in the system |
| .SH SYNOPSIS |
| .BR "free " [ "\-b" " | " "\-k" " | " "\-m" "] [" "\-o" "] [" "\-s" |
| .I delay |
| .RB "] [" "\-t" "] [" "\-V" ] |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| \fBfree\fP displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap |
| memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. |
| The shared memory column should be ignored; it is obsolete. |
| .SS Options |
| The \fB-b\fP switch displays the amount of memory in bytes; the |
| \fB-k\fP switch (set by default) displays it in kilobytes; the \fB-m\fP |
| switch displays it in megabytes. |
| .PP |
| The \fB-t\fP switch displays a line containing the totals. |
| .PP |
| The \fB-o\fP switch disables the display of a "buffer adjusted" line. |
| If the -o option is not specified, \fBfree\fP subtracts buffer memory |
| from the used memory and adds it to the free memory reported. |
| .PP |
| The \fB-s\fP switch activates continuous polling \fIdelay\fP seconds apart. You |
| may actually specify any floating point number for \fIdelay\fP, |
| .BR usleep (3) |
| is used for microsecond resolution delay times. |
| .PP |
| The \fB\-V\fP displays version information. |
| .SH FILES |
| .ta |
| .IR /proc/meminfo "\-\- memory information" |
| .fi |
| |
| .SH "SEE ALSO" |
| .BR ps (1), |
| .BR slabtop (1), |
| .BR vmstat (8), |
| .BR top(1) |
| |
| .SH AUTHORS |
| Written by Brian Edmonds. |
| |
| Send bug reports to <albert@users.sf.net> |
| |
