rainier:~$ free
             total       used       free    buffers
Mem:        125632     123576       2056          0
Swap:       197564     197560          4

(This free is a awk script using "vmstat -s" output. Remind me and I will
send-pr package for it.)

Then I started kword:

USER      PID %CPU %MEM   VSZ   RSS TT  STAT STARTED     TIME COMMAND
reed    26868  0.0 11.6  2116 15128 p8  S+    1:25PM  0:04.87 kword

And the free shows:
             total       used       free    buffers
Mem:        125632     124872        760          0
Swap:       197564     197564          0

And "systat vmstat" displays:

          memory totals (in KB)             PAGING   SWAPPING
         real   virtual    free             in  out   in  out
Active  67584    265148    1436     ops
All    124196    321760    1436     pages


If I understand correctly, the OS is trying to be efficient by using
nearly all available physical and virtual memory.

But, I can continue to load more and more stuff into memory, even though
the "free" amount is very little.

So how do I know how much memory is really available?

Thanks,

   Jeremy C. Reed
   http://bsd.reedmedia.net/