DevOps in Linux — free Command

Linux free command introduction

Note, full mind map is available at: “DevOps in Linux Mind Map”

What is free Command

The free command in Linux was developed as part of the procps package. This package contains utilities that are used for monitoring and managing processes on a Linux system.

free is a useful utility that displays information about system’s memory usage. It provides a quick overview of the total/used/available RAM, as well as swap space, and buffers/cache. It's a helpful tool to gauge your system's memory utilization and identify potential issues related to memory consumption.

The free command retrieves memory usage information from the /proc filesystem, specifically from the /proc/meminfo file. The /proc filesystem is a virtual filesystem that provides an interface to kernel data structures, enabling users and programs to access system information.

free Common Usage

To run the free command, open a terminal and type:

$ free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:        3955712     1646740      510244         584     1798728     2025568
Swap:             0           0           0