this post was submitted on 06 Jun 2025
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    Possibly related:

    screen shot of memory usage by app, showing Firefox using over 18GB of RAM

    I also don't understand why every chat app needs 1GB of RAM to itself.

    (page 2) 50 comments
    sorted by: hot top controversial new old
    [–] bigboismith@lemmy.world 167 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Hey, unused memory is wasted memory

    [–] Albbi@lemmy.ca 11 points 1 week ago

    If you got it, flaunt it.

    [–] unhrpetby@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

    If by "unused" you mean not actively storing data, then the Linux kernel docs disagree.

    vm.min_free_kbytes

    [–] crt0o@lemm.ee 114 points 1 week ago (4 children)

    Solution: if you only have 4GB ram, nothing can use more than 4GB

    [–] truthfultemporarily@feddit.org 57 points 1 week ago (10 children)

    It absolutely will try, it just gets killed by the oom reaper.

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    [–] Dave@lemmy.nz 8 points 1 week ago (5 children)

    I had one stick of 16GB and it was not enough. I was going to get a second stick, but said screw it and got two 32GB (it's a laptop and only has two slots).

    [–] malware@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

    How does that even happen πŸ’€πŸ’€ I have 2x8gb, usually have teams open, Firefox, telegram, a virtual machine with windows 10, a few IDEs and it usually only takes 10-12gb max mostly due to the vm requiring flat 8 gigs

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    [–] bobo1900@sopuli.xyz 7 points 1 week ago

    /swapfile joined the chat

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    [–] Ozonowsky@lemmy.world 88 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

    every chat app might use ~1GB because most of them are electron apps, which all spawn their own instance of chromium

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    [–] miss_demeanour@lemmy.dbzer0.com 82 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

    It's already been explained elsewhere, but the cache can be free, as needed - that's how linux works.
    There's 57+ GB available ram, yet.

    [–] Dave@lemmy.nz 27 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Yip, got that now. I misunderstood, as it's different to Windows, which shows cached memory as free since it's available to apps as needed.

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    [–] cloudless@piefed.social 37 points 1 week ago (3 children)

    Does it mean 35.1 GB out of the 44.3 GB is actually cached? Then you have quite low actual RAM usage considering you have 67 GB.

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    [–] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)
    [–] Dave@lemmy.nz 2 points 6 days ago (12 children)

    This site says Linux calls cached RAM "free" but in my screen shot it's definitely being shown as "used". I guess this is a choice of this app?

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    [–] mvirts@lemmy.world 26 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    Don't be confused by cached ram, be confused by the oom killer activating while you have plenty of swap and for some reason it kills the shell you ran Firefox from.

    If you want to go on a memory allocation adventure try disabling memory overcommit πŸ₯²

    [–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    If you're out of ram and using swap thats when the oom killer should be killing. Swap is not ram.

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    [–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

    ~19 Gb firefox

    Tf you doing

    [–] Dave@lemmy.nz 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

    The about:processes page doesn't even add up close to that:

    a screenshot of only the memory column in firefox's about:processes page. This shows firefox's main process using 7GB RAM, a 400MB, a 300MB, and a 200MB process, then other smaller ones under 100MB each. Adding up to perhaps 8 or 9 GB

    [–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 11 points 1 week ago (1 children)

    Then it's just a bug I guess

    Or someone is getting very rich in bitcoin right now

    [–] Dave@lemmy.nz 13 points 1 week ago

    Someone else pointed out cached RAM is shown as used in Linux, so Firefox is probably showing actual usage and the process list probably includes the RAM cached for Firefox.

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    oh i see you're also using a single tab for youtube and no other tabs

    [–] Treczoks@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago (5 children)

    Most RAM Linux reports as in used is actually used as disc cache to speed up the IO.

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    [–] confusedwiseman@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

    My first thought was that it was running a windows vm…

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    [–] disco@lemdro.id 6 points 1 week ago

    I had a power surge last night, desktop didn't even flinch.

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