Check Memory Usage, program like 'free' in Linux

[Jon Schipp]

On Thu, Nov 3, 2011 at 11:35 AM, Robert Bonomi <bonomi at mail.r-bonomi.com>wrote:

> > From owner-freebsd-questions at freebsd.org  Thu Nov  3 08:17:46 2011
> > Date: Thu, 3 Nov 2011 09:18:06 -0400
> > From: Jon Schipp <jonschipp at gmail.com>
> > To: freebsd-questions at freebsd.org
> > Subject: Check Memory Usage, program like 'free' in Linux
> >
> > Is there a program to check physical memory usage in FreeBSD(using 8.2
> > RELEASE)?
> > In vain of 'free' in Linux.
>
> Having *NO* idea what linux 'free' does, your question is hard to answer.
> >
> > I know you can check the values with sysctl, I was just checking if
> anyone
> > has a "cleaner" option.
> > I was always curious.
>
> If you're just looking for the amount of 'free' memory, the 3rd field of
> the third line of the  output of vmstat(8) has that value.
>
>
I'm under the impression that virtual memory and physical memory usage are
very different.

e.g. vmstat and top report very different memory values.