Liangxu Linux

Aug 15, 2020 · Fundamentals

Why Does `free` Show More Used Memory Than `ps aux`? A Deep Dive into Linux Memory Accounting

This article explains why Linux's `free` command often reports higher used memory than the RSS values shown by `ps aux`, covering buffer/cache reclaimable memory, slab and page‑table consumption, and provides Bash scripts to accurately calculate total memory usage.