jagwah Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 (edited) Just wondering if Mandriva would be making use of the RAM that I have installed. I noticed a couple of kernels that said something like they were for machines with up to 1gig of RAM and another up to 4gig of RAM respectively. I have 2gig of RAM on both my machines, and am just wondering if I have to have a specific kernel for Mandriva to make use of it? I have the standard kernel that ships with the Mandriva 2006 DVD (free) 2.6.12-12mdksmp Also, in MCC/Boot/Set up how the system boots, under advanced it says "Precise RAM size if needed (found 896 MB) what does that mean, is it saying than Madriva has found/thinks that I have only 896 MB of RAM? :unsure: Edited May 8, 2006 by jagwah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 You can check easily: cat /boot/config | grep HIGHMEM # CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM is not set # CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y CONFIG_HIGHMEM=y # CONFIG_DEBUG_HIGHMEM is not set there are two values to worry about. Both my lines above mean that I have up to 64GB enabled, which means if I had 2GB of memory, then I would be OK. Complete the same command for your system, and see what it says. If it doesn't list any of these, then your kernel isn't configured to see more than 1GB of memory. The bit in the boot loader, is to just limit the amount of memory at bootup. I would ignore this for the time being, and concentrate on whether your kernel can see the memory. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagwah Posted May 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 Thank you for your reply, mine says the same # CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM is not set # CONFIG_HIGHMEM4G is not set CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y CONFIG_HIGHMEM=y # CONFIG_DEBUG_HIGHMEM is not set So I am good to go? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 I would have thought so yes. The other option that enables up to 4GB is: CONFIG_HIGHMEM4GB=y usually only one is present, so I would assume it's OK. What's the out from this command: free does it see all memory? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 Looks good to me. If you want to know what your system sees directly run: $ free -m The will list your ram total and ram usage in megabytes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagwah Posted May 8, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 free Mem: total = 2074504 used=646184 free=1428320 shared=0 buffers= 35824 cached=418656 -/+ buffers/cache: used=191704 free=1882800 Swap: total=1124508 used= 0 free=1124508 free -m Mem: total=2025 used=630 free=1395 shared=0 buffers=35 cached=408 -/+ buffers/cache: used=186 free=1839 Swap: total=1098 used=0 free=1098 While I'm at it, I will be reinstalling everything soon, after I have played around some more, what should I set my swap partition to? should I follow the 2 x RAM rule? I have plenty of space, there is no problem there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 With Linux the 2 x ram rule doesn't necessarily apply. It tends to be a relation to Windows systems more than anything else. You should find that 512MB will be enough for swap if you have 1GB ram or more. Sometimes though, I do tend to allocate 1GB of swap maximum, since if a stick of ram fails, I've got some failover. But even then the likelihood it will get used is slim. If you do your Red Hat exam though, the general rule with them is 2 x ram :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gowator Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 With Linux the 2 x ram rule doesn't necessarily apply. It tends to be a relation to Windows systems more than anything else. True You should find that 512MB will be enough for swap if you have 1GB ram or more. I have only a Gig and I don't run swap at all unless I have a specific reason ... that means real mem hungry things... Sometimes though, I do tend to allocate 1GB of swap maximum, since if a stick of ram fails, I've got some failover. But even then the likelihood it will get used is slim. Its next to impossible since if a stick fails the chance is you will have executing code in that memory... nor can a running process be transferred however having swap or not makes a big difference to speed, if you have swap it will be used even if its not needed and turning it off is easy and if you need it you can turn it on with swapon and swapoff If you do your Red Hat exam though, the general rule with them is 2 x ram :P Hmm sounds like something made up just to be tested... reminds me of diving tests where they get you to do something just so it can be examined... like how long you hold your breath etc. To me the correct answer is it depends what you're doing... having said that I had a gig of mem on my machines for the last 5 yrs... even on something like my GF's little athlon 2000 which is aincient ... and Im sure it runs faster than a dual core modern athlon with 16GB RAM but 2x that in swap.... because regardless of your CPU speed if you are writing to disk its a bottleneck... and managing 32GB of swap is a ponltes thing to do unless you need it... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ianw1974 Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 Totally agree with you on the swap, just pointing out what Red Hat state. I'd fail the exam if I didn't answer it as 2 x ram, regardless of how much memory installed it the system. I too would say depends on specs of machine and it's intended use, but that's not an answer in the exam :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jagwah Posted May 9, 2006 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 Thanks all for your replies, the most demanding things I would use are Doom3 and Quake4 I would say, I have them, and Quake3 up and running just fine, only thing left is Quake,Quake2 and Doom, Doom2 and Final Doom, once I have them and the editors soughted out, and am satisfied with how they run, the last major hurdle in my transition will be getting my ADSL modem up and running(currently connecting with my Linux system through ICS with my XP machine connected to the net), but it seems that it will be fairly troublesome, so I may just buy a new one that will be easier to get going. Then I will be bidding farewell to Windows, and continuing my journey with Linux/Mandriva, which after a couple of false starts, and some fairly intensely frustrating moments, has leveled out a bit, to the point where I am enjoying it much more, just learning what I need to do as I go, without trying to get to far ahead of myself with things that aren't required at the present. Thanks again Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tyme Posted May 9, 2006 Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 the best, and easiest, way to connect a system to the internet is through a cable/dsl router. that is: dsl/cable modem -> dsl/cable router (get one at your local tech store) -> all systems this keeps you from having to work out compatibility with any OS and also provides an extra layer of security between you and the rest of the web. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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