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Re: Kernel reports that I have 64MB of RAM instead of 256MB



On Mon, 4 Sep 2000, Boaz Rymland wrote:

> Boaz Rymland wrote:
> > 
> > Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi!
> > >
> > > I have installed Mandrake 7.1 here at work. When I'm using a kernel which I
> > > compile myself and try to load linux by using loadlin, I encounter the
> > > following problem: I have 256 MB of RAM, but free reports that I only have
> > > 64 MB.

> > Sounds like the popular-and-easily-solved problem:
> > You need to pass the kernel, at boot time, a parameter apecifying how much RAM
> > you have.
> > This is easily done with lilo (/etc/lilo.conf on RH systems):
> > 
> >                 image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.14-5.0
> >                         label=linux
> >                         read-only
> >                         root=/dev/hda4
> > relevant line --->      append = "mem=192M"
> >                         password="yossi"
> >                         restricted
> > 
> > I cant exactly recall the way you pass that parameter with loadlin, but you
> > could easily find out with loadlin docs.
> > 
> > Boaz.
> 
> 
> Forgot to mention,DO NOT pass a "ram=..." parameter with more ram than you
> actually have ! it can be critical if you have only one kernel. It'll cause as
> far as I've seen, the kernel stucks at boot time (even before init comes up,
> leaving you with a useless system). Ifyou have more kernels, you can always
> choose any of those and update lilo (or whatever bootloader you use), and then
> reboot to your favorite kernel.

Alternatively - don't append this parameter in lilo.conf before you tried
it (manually, in the LILO: prompt). 
IIRC you generally need to put about 1MB less than what you have
("mem=255M" in case of 256 MB), because the bios needs it, or something
similar. I leave it for the hardware experts here to explain this).

-- 
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:tzafrir@technion.ac.il
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir


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