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Good day everyone and merry Christmas.

I am worried about RAM memory. The Internet goes slowly. I work with pictures and videos but pictures are stored in a Pendrive.

I have 2Gib of RAM but I think system uses too much.

Let you an image of free at this moment.

enter image description here

What do you think about?

Can you tell me if I have to do something?

Thanks in advance.

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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I have 2Gib of RAM but I think system uses too much.

You got this wrong: the more used the better. RAM not used is RAM wasted.

The Internet goes slowly

RAM usage is not the cause for this. Your connection itself is the slowest part when it is about connecting to internet.

Can you tell me if I have to do something?

Nothing to be done here. At least not based on that image alone.

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  • Thank you for your answer. My Internet connection is always the same. Where I have the problem is only with one page, the one where I am Co-Administrator. It is on Facebook.
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:27
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You should investigate into what free's reported buffers & cache really are; "I do not think it means what you think it means."

  1. Here's a nice explanation with colored images: Understanding the free command in Ubuntu (and Linux)

    • Linux will take unused memory (a.k.a memory not being used by applications and the OS) and use it for disk buffering and caching WHEN IT CAN.

    • "[W]e don’t care about how much memory is being used for buffering and caching. We need to know what is being used by applications and what is available to applications"

    • The Real Free Memory amount is on the -/+ buffers/cache: line

  2. Question on serverfault.com Meaning of the buffers/cache line in the output of free

  3. Here's another ok looking explanation: Understanding free command in Linux/Unix

    • A buffer is a temporary location to store data for a particular application and this data is not used by any other application.
    • Cache is a memory location to store frequently used data for faster access.
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  • Thanks for your answer. Please refer to my answer above.
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:25
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The best way to optimize memory in Linux is to leave it alone. You should subtract "cached" from "used" to estimate really free memory, because the "cached" one can be emptied at any moment when needed. Reducing memory consumption is slowing things down, not the other way.

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  • Thank you.A question: the cached empty itself alone or we have to do it? Sorry if this is a stupid question but I really don't know about cache in memories how works.
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:33
  • Yes, it empties by itself when any application requires more RAM. Caches speed up access to things like files or network. Better so, then not use memory at all, right?
    – Barafu Albino
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:41
  • Thanks. Then the cached memory really belongs to memory? If so, to know how much memory have I, should add the cached memory to free to know how much have I really or I understood bad?
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:56
  • Yes. But not very precise: some part of cache is unfreeable, some free memory not counts under "free" and so on, but still, more-or-less.
    – Barafu Albino
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 19:00
  • For example, somebody told me: shut down and restart and you will see cache will be empty. It not happened to me. When restarted, with nothing opened, I had no empty cache at all. Well, do you think I have not to be worry about memory usage?
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 19:49
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I noticed that you had some swap RAM going on. Considering the amount of RAM you are already using, this is likely normal. However, if you have not already done so, you might want to decrease your swappiness to 10 instead of the default 60. Also, you may want to check out lighter versions, such as Lubuntu, if speed is of especial concern. From personal experience, I've noticed that Lubuntu uses less resources than Ubuntu, both in CPU and RAM usage. Come to think of it, your CPU may be a limiting factor in your speed.

Here's a link on how to decrease swappiness for Lubuntu, might work for Ubuntu as well. Ubuntu uses gedit instead of leafpad. So where you see leafpad, change it to gedit.

If none of that makes any difference for you, you might want to look up how to increase the speed of your browser. I know you can make Firefox pipeline, among other tricks.

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  • decreasing swappiness doesn't need a link, those directions (if you want to do that) = echo -e "# Decrease swap usage to a more reasonable level \nvm.swappiness=10" | sudo tee -a /etc/sysctl.conf
    – Xen2050
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 17:28
  • Thanks for answers. SamDuBlake I let you know I decreased already swappiness to 10 and don't notice any difference.
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:14
  • Thanks for answers. SamDuBlake I let you know I decreased already swappiness to 10 and don't notice any difference. I am really thinking of increase my phisycal memory instead of be fighting with what I have. I don't understand what is happening now because before I had no problems. Maybe it is because I am using all day Facebook(I am co-administrator of a Fan page). You, looking at my screencap, would be worried or not?
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:23
  • There were some comments about decreasing swappiness on low ram computers (under 512 I think), it could cause more disk access (from shrinking the ram disk cache most likely), and leaving it at 60 was actually better. Don't have to reboot to change it either FYI. And half your real ram's free in the image (unless you're running live or using overlayfs, they seem to hide in cached ram). But a single free doesn't reveal much info, what's the problem?
    – Xen2050
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 18:37
  • Hi Xen2050. The problem is what I am saying above. The page I Co-Admin goes slowly, react slowly and don't know why. I have no problem to reach other sites but it is annoying to have this problem with my page.
    – user299596- Verónica B.
    Commented Dec 25, 2014 at 19:44

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