Linux Mem Usage

Linux and Unix-Like Linux
1

What is amount of free RAM i have now?

              total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1010        963         46          0        215        256
-/+ buffers/cache:        491        518
Swap:         1983          0       1983

Above is the output of 'free -m' from my linux machine. I did some searching on the internet and some of the articles point that linux is memory hungry ( not that it use up memory very fast, but it will use what is available). In my case, what is the free RAM i have? 46M or 518M. I highly do not think that its 46M + 518M.

The used and free Mem adds up to 1010 ( 963 + 46)

I am quite buffled by the -/+ buffers/cache value, the used and free values also adds up to 1010.

so linux is telling me it has used up 963MB of ram and 46MB is still available but on the other hand, it has 491 used in the buffer and 518 in the buffer is free... confused and curious

My total physical ram is 1GB. Would appreciate if anyone can explain and 'de-mysterifiy' me.

2

But on the other had you have nearly 2Gig of swap it hasn't even touched.

Here would be an interesting test, start running more programs and see if it starts to use the swap file or whether it merely reduces the number of buffers available.