ianw1974 Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 I've just recently downloaded and installed Linux Mandrake 10.0 Official on a desktop machine, and also my laptop too. However, I noticed one of two things. Firstly, I have an option for the i686 up to 4GB. I'm not sure which option to choose to boot from. The desktop had 512MB RAM and I use the entry coded "linux". For the laptop, I had the i686 up to 4GB and the previous mentioned "linux" option. Why are there two, and which one am I best to use? Also, my laptop wouldn't sort the graphics automatically, and wants to use XFree86, else I don't get a GUI. Is this normal? The desktop was fine, running an ATI Radeon driver. Laptop is Intel based chipset. Apologies, only I don't really understand all this at the minute, but am learning slowly :-). Your help is appreciated so that I know which is best for me to boot with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
adamw Posted March 9, 2005 Report Share Posted March 9, 2005 (edited) How much RAM does the laptop have? If less than 1GB, use the default kernel. i686-up-4GB doesn't mean i686 'up to' 4GB. It means i686-UniProcessor-4GB - i.e. it's for a machine with at least an i686 processor (anything after Pentium Pro) - but only one - and less than 4GB of RAM. For a dual processor machine or one with HyperThreading, you'd use a kernel with smp in the name (or the enterprise kernel, which has smp enabled). In other words, smp and up are opposed, and mean 'multi-processor' and 'single processor' respectively. Actually, either kernel will work. But the reason you shouldn't use the up-4GB kernel for machines with less than 1GB of RAM is this. A default kernel will support up to around 1GB (actually 850MB or so) of RAM. Supporting any more than this actually results in a slight performance decrease. So using kernels compiled with support for 4GB or 64GB of RAM on a machine with less than 1GB will result in an avoidable slight performance decrease. Sorry, that was a little badly explained, hope you got the gist. Edited March 10, 2005 by adamw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted March 10, 2005 Author Report Share Posted March 10, 2005 Excellent, thanks for that. I wasn't sure, as I'm new to this, and want to understand it a bit more and use it. The laptop does have 1GB of RAM, so I think I should be OK using this option. It didn't appear on the desktop, which made me wonder why it was there. Thanks for your help, I understood what you wrote :-) so you have nothing to worry about. My book arrives in a few days, so at least I'll be able to persevere a bit more and learn! Well, that's the idea anyhow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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