I am relatively new to Linux, and I am having trouble booting. When I try to boot SuSE 8.1 using Grub, it informs me that I don't have enough memory to load the kernel. I assume it means the lower memory, as I have a well-specced machine. It worked perfectly prior to me adding an extra 256MB of RAM (making it 512MB), although this may not be the source of the problem. I have been tinkering with my BIOS, so perhaps it could be something there, and moved a jumper pin on the motherboard to allow overclocking (though I haven't bothered with the overclocking, so I doubt it's relevant). I did change the command Grub uses for startup (at startup, so I assumed it wouldn't store it). I have also tried Yoper, but it is unable to boot the x-server, and it uses LILO. I thought there could be something in my config.sys or autoexec.bat giving lower memory details, but I use XP and these files seem to have gone AWOL. Help?

512 is MORE than enough to run any linux distro...so its not the memory per se...

What's the exact error you get on the screen?

(I've run some distro...peanut linux to be exact, on a p133 with 32 megs of ram....so no, 512 megs of Ram is more than enough).

Some shots in the dark:

You say you've been messing with the mobo, is it detecting your new RAM in your BIOS? (Had that happen once).

I am not familiar with Grub, but I remember seeing something in Lilo that sometimes, for some distros, you need to pass a parameter to it (something like mem=512M...that's not exact, you'd need to search for it) to get it to properly detect all your RAM...maybe that's the same sort of problem?

Also...can you still boot XP? Maybe its a hardware problem?

You say you tried YOPER and it wouldn't boot the X-server...did it boot up to command-line? It could be a problem other than RAM at this point.

Also, if you can...I'd give Knoppix a try...the hardware detection is much better than anything else I've ever tried.

Um... the motherboard does detect my RAM, and XP does work. Maybe the YOPER thing is something else, right enough. My graphics card is NVIDIA, after all. But the odd thing is after trying numerous installations of SuSE 8.1 is that it won't work when it worked perfectly before. At first I thought it was because I changed the GRUB parameters (for a different reason), but I overwrite the MBR each time (using a Windows 98 startup disk and fdisk /mbr).

I can't think what it could be.

what happens when you boot with a floppy?
if you can boot, the prob is with grub.
(and yes 512mb is waaaay over what you need..
ive run a X windows on 16mb)

This is the exact message that appears with SuSE 8.1:

kernel (hd0,5)/boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 hdd=ide-scsi vga=791

[Linux-bzimage, setup=0x1400, size=0x10aab8]

Error 28: Selected item cannot fit into memory

Press any key to continue...


... which returns me to the GRUB screen. Does this help?

I did a quick google search** and I saw this interesting tidbit:

grub problem with some mobos

I know its not exactly your setup, but its a clue. do you have anything that's in the mobo chipset? Onboard I mean?

I'd try installing Lilo. It works great for me.

** = Remember...google is your friend.

Thank you!!!

I do have an Nforce and I recently updated my BIOS to rev. 1004, so that must be the problem. I'll now have to see if I can update (downdate?) my BIOS to the compatible original.

Thanks again!

Dude....don't downgrade right off

Try Lilo! That way you can keep your more recent BIOS upgrade.

If that doesn't work, THEN downgrade.

Hmm... it wasn't much of an update anyway (just adding support for processors I don't have), and you're too late anyway

Everything is working fine again!
(except this spurious IRQ interrupt business... but thats another story...)

I had the exact same problem with an ASUS A7N266-VM MoBo. I upgraded to GRUB .93 and was finally able to boot. You can get it from here: http://people.debian.org/~nobse/debi...ckported/grub/