[NTLUG:Discuss] when is a 'k' really a 'k'

[David Camm]

i've just started some production on a new system - redhat 5.2 with the
2.0.36 kernel 
and have discovered that even though the machine is 98% idle, it is
swapping.

the machine has 500Mb of RAM.

looking at procinfo, the memory is shown as 514584. free memory is
always there, 
depending on instantaneuos load.

500 * 1024 is 512000.

the lilo.conf has append='mem=511M'

two questions:

1. could the fact that the kernel thinks it has more memory (511M) than
it does cause the system to swap?

2. what's the correct value for mem=?

david camm
@dvanced web systems