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Increasing RAM to 1Gb [solved]


lorisarvendu
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Hi all

 

I'm currently running Mandriva 2007 on a P3-600 with 768Mb RAM. That's the most the old board will take (3 slots maxed at 256Mb). However, I now find myself in possession of a P4-1700 on a board that will go up to 2Gb DDR (The Big Time!).

 

The last time I upgraded hardware everything went swimmingly, none of this BSOD Windows rubbish with different HALs, and I'm hoping the same thing will happen again.

 

However, this is the first time I've gone over 1Gb. I have a niggling thought that I've read somewhere I'll need another kernel to address <1Gb RAM. Is this right? If so, can I just get one off the Mandriva peg so to speak?

 

Uname -r tells me I'm running 2.6/17-5mdv.

 

cheers

 

Dave

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I lifted this from here: http://www.cpqlinux.com/memory.html

 

Installing with more than 1GB of memory:

It is not wise to have the installer use more than 1GB of memory. The installer may not be configured to handle it and may get confused and abort. Limit the amount of memory that the installer sees to 960M. The following may be keyed in at the boot prompt:

mem=960M

 

Gaining access to more than 1GB of memory:

If your system isn't detecting more than 1GB of memory then there are several ways to get around this:

Install the Enterprise-kernel - this has support for more memory built in already (this would suggest you may need to use this kernel)

Recompile the kernel choosing either 1GB, 2GB or 4GB during configuration

Recompile the kernel enabling bigmem

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I lifted this from here: http://www.cpqlinux.com/memory.html

Very dated though.

 

Put simply, your system will work fine with the current kernel, you just won't get the full 1gb.

 

After you've rebuilt the system and put the new mem in, and it's working, *then* upgrade to the other kernel. It was enterprise last time I used mandriva.... someone check that. It'll be in urpmi/rpmdrake.

 

James

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I have 1Gb of memory and have used the normal kernels for 2yrs.

The memory is fully detected and has been for for about 1.5yrs.

I forget which kernel version was first that was 1Gb compliant but all current ones are, namely Mandriva2006 onwards as far as I am aware.

 

Cheers. John.

 

Sorry Nexus but as Iphitus correctly states, that information is very out of date.

However, welcome to MUB and making a contribution to assist in the discussion. JB

Edited by AussieJohn
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That problem still exists on older hardware, and thus I had always to boot with:

 

linux mem=128M

 

since I'd get kernel panics otherwise. But we're talking 500MHz Compaq hardware, and sometimes even Dells running at 400MHz or so.

 

Never encountered it on newer hardware, so unless you're using old hardware, you should never encounter this problem as far as I know.

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The stock kernels should work. But Mandriva has some optimised i586 kernels for systems with less than 1 GB Ram and kernels for systems with up to 4 GB Ram available from the repos if you want/need them.

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I have 1Gb of memory and have used the normal kernels for 2yrs.

The memory is fully detected and has been for for about 1.5yrs.

I forget which kernel version was first that was 1Gb compliant but all current ones are, namely Mandriva2006 onwards as far as I am aware.

 

Cheers. John.

 

Sorry Nexus but as Iphitus correctly states, that information is very out of date.

 

Looks like I'm a bit out of date with mandriva too :)

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I'm not surprised. I recently switched from a PII 350 with 300MB RAM to a Core2Duo with 1GB RAM (now 2GB), without having to reinstall anything! The whole system just booted as usual... and a LOT faster :)

 

Yves.

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The whole system just booted as usual... and a LOT faster :)
Well, it was expected to be faster after an upgrade, wasn't it? Otherwise your computer would be quite unusual. ;)
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It's so good you can do this with Linux. Try doing the same with Windows ;)

 

Don't work, I know, I've tried. Forcing you to make a fake upgrade/repair from the CD.

 

Linux 1 Windows 0

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It's so good you can do this with Linux. Try doing the same with Windows ;)

 

Don't work, I know, I've tried. Forcing you to make a fake upgrade/repair from the CD.

 

Linux 1 Windows 0

 

It actually took me longer to swop the motherboard & cards out than it did for the system to boot up and update itself (found a new onboard NIC and...umm...that's it). My job primarily involves support to a Windows userbase, so I'm genuinely surprised when upgrades go as well as this.

 

Mind you, you think Windows is bad. Anyone remember OS/2 Warp? Config.sys file a mile long, and when it went down, it really went down!

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