From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 10:39:04 -0400 (EDT)
From: Rik van Riel <riel@redhat.com>
Subject: Re: Linux free issue
In-Reply-To: <MEHFFGFJPAFEOBAA@mailcity.com>
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0307191037530.26759-100000@chimarrao.boston.redhat.com>
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Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org
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To: Vinay I K <abcxyz1@lycos.com>
Cc: Linux-MM@kvack.org
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On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Vinay I K wrote:

> http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-mm/1998-08/msg00028.html
> 
> I am a bit confused. When we call free in Linux, is the memory not given
> back to the system(just cached)? What is the state of the issue in the
> latest Linux Kernel?

The issue is not in the Linux kernel at all, but in glibc.
It is the C library that has (after careful measuring and
optimising) made the decision to not call the system call
to free memory but instead keep it for later use.

I suspect their decision is the right one in most of the
cases.

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