RAM right after startup...

[MalcolmJID]

...how the hell can I only have 6Mb RAM free?

And all those page-ins/outs were within one minute of starting up. The only program loaded was Stattoo and Activity Monitor.

Why only 6Mb?

 

[CanadaRAM]

Well, mainly because you only have 512 Mb RAM, which is just barely enough to launch OSX. Your PageOuts aren't terrible, but they will jump up once you start multitasking applications.
Cut back on Widgets and background processes if you can. Or install more RAM.

Don't worry at all about how much RAM is free, OSX minds the store for you, and seeks to optimize performance with whatever RAM is available.

 

[dr_lha]

I really wish Apple would stop selling people computers with 512Mb of RAM. Its not enough for an Intel machine, you need 1Gb minimum.