wojtek@wojtek.from.pl writes:

>i think i found what "eats" about 3MB of memory but i do not understand
>why..
>vmstat -sm gives right sums until swap will be started.
>adding swap EATS near 700 pages!!!! 

this is odd.. I just had a look at my vaxstation, which is the
only one close to 8mb I can lay my hands on (it's got 24 megs actually),
and summed up stuff:

at startup, the kernel tells me the following:
total memory = 24448 KB
avail memory = 19000 KB
using 610 buffers containing 2440 KB of memory

"top" spits out:
Memory: 6724K Act, 4012K Inact, 188K Wired, 5224K Free, 1440K Swap, 95M Swap free

and vmstat -m says:
In use 413K, total allocated 804K; utilization 51.5%

now, if I sum it up, _with the extra addition of the buffers_, I get:

Act    Inact  Wired   Free   Kern  Buffers   Total
6724 + 4012 + 188   + 5224 + 804 + 2440    = 19392

which at first glance looks very much like the 19 megs reported
as "avail" at bootup.

However: I always thought, "avail memory" at kernel start already
_included_ the block buffer cache, I mean, it does change when
I change buffer size options (I did so, to have a slightly larger cache.)
Over 5 megs runtime size for a rather stripped-down vax kernel would
seem a bit excessive also.
However, if the buffer cache is included in the above value, then I
shouldn't have to add the 2440K and then there would be about 2 megs
missing.  Now, where are they?  Is it just my confusion, some discrepancy
in certain values reported by the kernel or displayed by tools, or
is there really something missing?

mkb