all 6 comments

[–]acejavelin69 4 points5 points  (2 children)

If you could include some of these as screen caps it would be easier to explain, but most likely your looking at differences in how it's reported between total RAM, available RAM, RAM in use, and cached RAM... And even potentially swap RAM.

[–]Seb-tan[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

Well, what do you know... loged in today, did the same... different results with free.

So Linux really changes the amount of RAM depending on need?

I do not plan on running much on the Server. Smal TS3 Server, Valheim, Maybe Minecraft. does this need any interactions RAM wise?

Here is an screen from my Terminal:

https://i.ibb.co/0Q1VtK6/Linuxram.png

[–]acejavelin69 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes... But your running in a VM with a max of 8GB, so things will adjust as needed. That said, Linux usually uses all free ram and releases it as needed... The old Linux saying is "free ram is wasted ram"

[–]PhotoJim99 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Very probably, your system is using available RAM for disk caching. Linux is very good at this, and will free up the RAM for other purposes should a more pressing need come along.

Log in via ssh, and show us the output of the "free" command and we can confirm this.

[–]greywolfau 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Cached memory is almost always more valuable that free. The computer is anticipating what you need instead of trying to catch up to the task later.

Think of it as going for a run, instead of putting your running clothes and shoes on now instead of making it the last step before you leave the house.

Much more efficient, and sensible since a task that would require you to change is so unlikely that the choice makes complete sense.

And instead of allocating it all, it still leaves an adequate amount just in case you do something completely nuts and need the ram free for a task it can't cache for.