I've just started messing around with VMWare Server on my Gentoo system. As I got more and more virtual systems set up, I started filling up my RAM (I had 512 MB in the system), so I had 1 GB of the same type of RAM laying around, and decided to put it in.

So i put the 2 chips in (now i have 3 chips, 512 MB each) -- the initial BIOS screen reports 1.5 GB of RAM, which is correct.

Now, when I get all booted up and fire up VMWare, it reports 884 MB of ram. I figure it's just the VMWare MUI reporting it incorrectly, so i issue "free -m" and it reports the exact same thing.

So, I take one of the chips out, so I now have 2 512 MB chips totalling 1 GB, and I boot up... exact same thing, 884 MB.

I just booted up into Knoppix 5.1 and "free -m" reports the correct amount, 1009 MB. I know this RAM to be good as I just took it out of a functional P4 system, so is there something else I have to do in Gentoo to change this, or could anyone clue me in on what's going on?

My kernel is 2.6.18-gentoo-r4 if that matters.

Thanks in advance

Well, if you're running gentoo its your fault.
Check your highmem settings in he kernel config - HIGHMEM4G should be all you need.

Ah yes.

Sounds like I need to get a distro I actually know how to use.

Thanks for the help.

No need to give up on gentoo - this is a good reason to get into a kernel update/compile.
Plenty of doco on the gentoo site.

Next time you compile the kernel after a sync pulls down the source, just make sure you pull in your modified .config, and you'll be all set.