I can not allocate ram memory for WSL2

Question

[ailton]

Dear;

I can't allocate ram memory to my wsl2, I've already made the recommendations that are available on the site (Advanced settings configuration in WSL | Microsoft Learn), in which I created a .wslconfig file in the path C:\Users\<UserName>.wslconfig . With the following specifications;

Settings apply across all Linux distros running on WSL 2:

[wsl2]

#Limits VM memory to use no more than 4 GB, this can be set as whole numbers using GB or MB
memory=12GB

#Sets amount of swap storage space to 8GB, default is 25% of available RAM
swap=2GB

And even so I can't increase the amount of ram used by wsl2. In this case, he is using only 7gb of ram, and I would like him to use 12gb.

My notebook has 16gb of ram.

[ATpoint]

This is actually off-topic and more suited for StackOverflow or WSL GitHub. Anyway, that looks correct. Be sure to restart the WSL after saving that file and then use free -hm to see the amount of available memory in the Linux shell.

[GenoMax]

I don't know how much RAM windows needs now-a-days but you may not be able to use 12G since that would leave just 4 GB for windows. Perhaps that is being reflected by 7 GB you are able to use.

[ailton]

Thank you so much for your answer. In this case, he is using only 7gb of ram, and I would like him to use 12gb. I've also tried to download the amount of ram used by wsl2, but it doesn't change. In other words, I used the command memory=4GB, and even so, he continued using 7gb.

[ATpoint]

Can you go into the Linux shell and type free -mh and post the output please?

[ailton]

:~$ free -mh

• Mem: total=7.7Gi used =285Mi free=7.3Gi shared=2.0Mi buff/cache=152Mi available=7.2Gi
• Swap: total=2.0Gi used =0B 2.0Gi

[i.sudbery]

I have no config file, and I seem to be able to use as much RAM as I have free on WSL. Note that it could be that on a 16GB notebook, you only have 7GB free for WSL to use.