linux - How to see top processes sorted by actual memory usage?

Question

I have a server with 12G of memory. A fragment of top is shown below:

PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
12979 frank  20   0  206m  21m  12m S   11  0.2  26667:24 krfb                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
13 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S    1  0.0  36:25.04 ksoftirqd/3                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
59 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   4:53.00 ata/2                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
2155 root      20   0  662m  37m 8364 S    0  0.3 338:10.25 Xorg                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
4560 frank  20   0  8672 1300  852 R    0  0.0   0:00.03 top                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           
12981 frank  20   0  987m  27m  15m S    0  0.2  45:10.82 amarok                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        
24908 frank  20   0 16648  708  548 S    0  0.0   2:08.84 wrapper                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
1 root      20   0  8072  608  572 S    0  0.0   0:47.36 init                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
2 root      15  -5     0    0    0 S    0  0.0   0:00.00 kthreadd

The free -m shows the following:

             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:         12038      11676        362          0        599       9745
-/+ buffers/cache:       1331      10706
Swap:         2204        257       1946

If I understand correctly, the system has only 362 MB of available memory. My question is: How can I find out which process is consuming most of the memory?

Just as background info, the system is running 64bit OpenSuse 12.

Answer 1

use quick tip using top command in linux/unix

$ top

and then hit Shift+m (i.e. write a capital M).

From man top

SORTING of task window
  For compatibility, this top supports most of the former top sort keys.
  Since this is primarily a service to former top users, these commands do
  not appear on any help screen.
    command   sorted-field                  supported
      A         start time (non-display)      No
      M         %MEM                          Yes
      N         PID                           Yes
      P         %CPU                          Yes
      T         TIME+                         Yes

Or alternatively: hit Shift + f , then choose the display to order by memory usage by hitting key n then press Enter. You will see active process ordered by memory usage