## NAME

free - Display amount of free and used memory in the system

## SYNOPSIS

free

## DESCRIPTION

free displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The shared memory column represents either the MemShared value (2.4 series kernels) or the Shmem value (2.6 series kernels and later) taken from the /proc/meminfo file. The value is zero if none of the entries is exported by the kernel.

## OPTIONS

-b, --bytes Display the amount of memory in bytes.

-k, --kilo Display the amount of memory in kilobytes. This is the default.

-m, --mega Display the amount of memory in megabytes.

-g, --giga Display the amount of memory in gigabytes.

--tera Display the amount of memory in terabytes.

-h, --human Show all output fields automatically scaled to shortest three digit unit and display the units of print out. Following units are used.

      B = bytes
      K = kilos
      M = megas
      G = gigas
      T = teras

If unit is missing, and you have petabyte of RAM or swap, the number is in terabytes and columns might not be aligned with header.

-c, --count count Display the result count times. Requires the -s option.

-l, --lohi Show detailed low and high memory statistics.

-o, --old Display the output in old format, the only difference being this option will disable the display of the "buffer adjusted" line.

-s, --seconds seconds Continuously display the result delay seconds apart. You may actually specify any floating point number for delay , usleep (3)is used for microsecond resolution delay times.

--si Use power of 1000 not 1024.

-t, --total Display a line showing the column totals.

--help Print help.

-V, --version Display version information.

## FILES

/proc/meminfo memory information

## SEE ALSO

ps (1), slabtop (1), top (1), vmstat (8).

## AUTHORS

Written by Brian Edmonds.

## REPORTING BUGS

Please send bug reports to