How does Linux manage the release of RAM when it becomes excessive or unused?

Linux manages RAM using several mechanisms:

• Caching and buffering: Linux uses free memory to cache files and buffers to speed up data access. If applications need memory, the cache is freed.

• Swapping (swap): when RAM runs out, the system can move inactive memory pages to disk (swap), freeing RAM for active processes.

• OOM Killer (Out-Of-Memory Killer): if memory is insufficient and swap is also exhausted, the kernel may terminate processes with the highest memory consumption to prevent system crash.

• Automatic page freeing: unused or rarely used memory pages are marked for release.

Thus, Linux dynamically balances memory usage by freeing unused resources and resorting to swapping or process termination if necessary.