What is "residual memory"? Can anyone explain?

[shimi]

On Fri, Dec 16, 2011 at 11:43 AM, Shlomi Fish <shlomif at shlomifish.org>wrote:

> Hi all.
>
> I reported a bug in Amarok ( https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=288876 )
> where it sometimes consumes over 10% of my RAM on startup, and it was
> closed
> with this comment:
>
> <<<<
> Well, there is the virtual memory but it is the residual memory use that
> matters. Yours us just 371M which is absolutely correct.
> FWIW: I suggest you read up some documentation on dynamic memory use in
> Linux.
> In short: the more memory available, the more will be used, the system
> distributes this evenly to the running processes depending on their
> priority.
>
> Not a bug.
> >>>>
>
> Well, I don't understand it. What is "residual memory" in this context (as
> Google searches for it yields junk.), and why is still OK that Amarok
> consumes
> so much.
>
> Any insights would be appreciated.
>
> Regards,
>
>        Shlomi Fish
>
>
>
I would assume he meant RSS[1], as opposed to VSZ ('VIRT' in 'top'). A
program can ask for a huge amount of memory but not use it, so it won't
actually waste your resources...

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_set_size

-- Shimi
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