1.1 KiB
1.1 KiB
🖥️ Viewing Memory Usage with free
The free command shows your system’s memory usage.
free
For human-readable output (MB, GB, etc.):
free -h
📊 Explanation of columns:
| Column | Description |
|---|---|
| 💾 total | Total physical memory (RAM) available in the system. |
| 📂 used | Memory currently used by processes and the system. |
| 🆓 free | Completely unused RAM (not allocated to anything). |
| 🔄 shared | Memory shared between multiple processes. |
| ⚡ buff/cache | Memory used for file buffers and cache to improve performance. |
| ✅ available | Estimated memory available for starting new apps without swapping. |
💡 Pro Tip:
✅ availableis more useful than🆓 freefor knowing how much memory you can actually use, since Linux keeps unused memory in cache for speed.