.SH DESCRIPTION
.B free
displays the total amount of free and used physical and swap memory in the
-system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel.
-The shared memory column represents either the MemShared value (2.4 series
-kernels) or the Shmem value (2.6 series kernels and later) taken from the
-/proc/meminfo file. The value is zero if none of the entries is exported
-by the kernel.
+system, as well as the buffers used by the kernel. The shared memory column
+should be ignored; it is obsolete.
.SH OPTIONS
.TP
\fB\-b\fR, \fB\-\-bytes\fR
{"LowTotal", &kb_low_total},
{"Mapped", &kb_mapped}, // kB version of vmstat nr_mapped
{"MemFree", &kb_main_free}, // important
- {"MemShared", &kb_main_shared}, // obsolete since kernel 2.6! (sharing the variable with Shmem replacement)
+ {"MemShared", &kb_main_shared}, // important, but now gone!
{"MemTotal", &kb_main_total}, // important
{"NFS_Unstable", &kb_nfs_unstable},
{"PageTables", &kb_pagetables}, // kB version of vmstat nr_page_table_pages
{"ReverseMaps", &nr_reversemaps}, // same as vmstat nr_page_table_pages
{"SReclaimable", &kb_swap_reclaimable}, // "swap reclaimable" (dentry and inode structures)
{"SUnreclaim", &kb_swap_unreclaimable},
- {"Shmem", &kb_main_shared}, // kernel 2.6 and later (sharing the output variable with obsolete MemShared)
{"Slab", &kb_slab}, // kB version of vmstat nr_slab
{"SwapCached", &kb_swap_cached},
{"SwapFree", &kb_swap_free}, // important