[uClibc] [MM] What is this large buffer size?

[Remco van Strien]

Hi,

recently I've been busy trying to get the latest Linux kernel with
buildroot running in a 4 mb RAM drive on a x86 diskless pc. I have
succeeded into doing that now. However when I run top or enter cat
/proc/meminfo, I see that i have only approx. 300 kb of free memory while
I have some kind of buffer that uses 964kb. Also, my system has 150-200 kb
memory in use for caching.

What do these buffer and caching values mean and can I turn them off? I do
not need to cache anything and could really well use the 900k that that
buffer is using as free memory.

TECHNICAL DATA PROVIDED BY TOP:
Mem: 2232K used
Free: 320K
buff: 964K (!)
cached: 140K

TIA,
Remco