Ubuntu: Reclaiming memory in a Desktop Environment

[Eric Wanchic]

All,

For those of you that use Ubuntu in a desktop environment, like
myself, you may notice after a while that your memory cache is full and
sometimes doesn't empty completely when all of your programs shutdown.
Here is a command I run from time to time so I don't have to restart my
system.

sudo echo 3 > /proc/sys/vm/drop_caches

Works nice, and it can be used at anytime with as many programs up as
desired. However, if you first close/quit as many programs as possible
before, you will maximize the amount of free space you can obtain.

My biggest memory hogs (understandably) are Firefox and vmware machines.
BTW, I typically have 20-80 sites up in my Firefox at one time, encase
you we're wondering why.

Eric

[Dan Falconer]

Eric,

What does this do?  Why put a "3" in there?  It would be greatly helpful if you could provide a link or two that has more information on the topic (no time to Google at the moment).

Thanks for the interesting advice!

--
Best Regards,


Dan Falconer
http://CrazedSanity.com || http://www.Buzzkill.org