On Wed, Mar 29, 2006 at 03:20:28PM +0200, Havard Eidnes wrote:
> > Hello.
> > Is there any reason why the memory used by the kernel is so large?
> > Top is showing that kernel processes use 233MB of memory.
> > The system has 1GB, so the amount used by the kernel is a large percentage.
> > Does this memory include the buffer cache, or is it occupied by the kernel
> > itself?
> 
> First I have to ask how you read top's output to come to the
> conclusion you do.  E.g. you can't simply add the "RES" sizes of
> the processes with [] around their names; as far as I know, these
> processes all share the same virtual address space.
> 
> However, with that said, it is quite normal for the kernel's data
> structures to occupy a major portion of physical memory, since this
> includes the area for buffering file data, vnodes etc. etc.
                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I don't think that buffered file data will show as the RES size of kernel
threads.

Pavel