How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

(How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint) An important aspect of the operating system is managing system resources to enhance its performance, especially on a low-memory system. Thus, over time, your RAM or Random Access Memory may contain unnecessary information and slow down your system operations. Please read the following guide for Linux mint users who want to clean or clear the RAM.

1. Check Current RAM Usage

It is crucial therefore to look at how much RAM is used before freeing it up. Like most operating systems, Linux Mint provides a variety of ways through which one may monitor the consumption of system resources, and the terminal is among them.
Using Terminal: You can open the terminal through the shortcut key Ctrl + Alt + T and then type the following command.

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

This will display a detailed overview of your memory usage. Here’s what the output might look like:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint
  • They call your physical RAM Mem.
  • Cache means a section of your hard drive disk that performs like extra RAM.

2. Close Unnecessary Applications

The last step is ending programs that are not important to the current activity of a computer or a laptop. Reducing the amount of opened applications is one of the simplest techniques to release RAM. Background programs can take up RAM even when you don’t have to engage with them in some way or other.

How to Close Applications:
To do this, go to the application switcher Alt + Tab and close all unnecessary programs.
Open the System Monitor through the program list to help you discover and eliminate applications that consume many resources.

3. Clear Cache in RAM

As for the directory architecture, Linux Mint maintains its most frequently accessed files to RAM with cache for faster processing. Now and then, this cache begins to stock up and can take up a large chunk of the RAM. We fully agree with the authors who state that the cached files can be removed to free up memory.
Clear Cache Using the Terminal: This one will flush the cache:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

Explanation:
Another thing that sync does is to ensure that all the data to be contained in the memory has been written in the disks before the cache is cleared. It is important to note that echo 3 overrules the system to remove the page cache, entries, and inodes.
To confirm that the cache has been cleared, type the command free -h again to check on the memory.

4.Kill Unnecessary Processes

Less known is the fact that the processes running in the background can take lots of memory space. It is now possible to kill these processes through the System Monitor or the terminal.
Kill a Process in the Terminal: List all running processes by using the top command:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

5. Use Swap Memory

That’s why when your RAM is saturated Linux begins to use swap memory. If your system is low on memory then to avoid low memory conditions you should either increase the swap space or change the swappiness value of the system.
Check Current Swap Usage: In the terminal, type:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

This will show the usage of swaps and their size respectively.
Increase Swap Space: If necessary you might want to enlarge your swap file. Here’s a simplified method to add more swap space:
1. Create a swap file:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

This command creates a swap file of 2 GB. You can change the size as per your requirement.

2. Set the correct permissions for the swap file:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

3. Mark the file as swap space:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

4. Enable the swap file:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

5. To make this swap permanent, add it to /etc/fstab:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

6. Reduce Swappiness Value


Swappiness is a single value that adjusts how much the kernel likes swapping. It’s normally set to 60 and you can decrease this to avoid high activity swapping which tends to slow down a system.
Check the Current Swappiness Value:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

Change the Swappiness Value:

  1. To temporarily reduce the swappiness, use the following command (e.g., to set it to 10):
How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

2. To make the change permanent, edit the /etc/sysctl.conf file:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

Add this line to the file:

How to Clean RAM on Linux Mint

7. Use Lightweight Applications

If you are running low on RAM often, then you need to start using lite versions for some of the programs you are using most. For instance:
In its place, use Midori or Brave browser.
Install using Wine and then just install LibreOffice instead of MS Office.
Use Pinta instead of GIMP as the option is much simpler to use.

8. Reboot the System

In the last case, you have to restart the system; it will remove all the temporary files, processes, and cache on the RAM. It is most beneficial when your computer has been on for a while and RAM is severely fragmented.

Conclusion

As mentioned, clearing the cache on Linux Mint RAM can be done either directly from the terminal or using the graphical user interface. But what about tabs, caches, swap spaces, and your memory in general? Well, constant checking, clearing, and management of these are crucial for the optimal functioning of a system. So next time you run into memory issues in Linux Mint, don’t worry – you can free up the RAM as described in the steps above.

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