how to upgrade the Debian 3 kernel 2.4.18 to kernel 2.6 or bigmem- kernel

chandu.bezawada · 11-09-2010, 06:30 AM

Hi all
Dear friends,

we have a Dell 1850 with Debian 3.0 (woody) with 2.4.18 kernel running some critical applications, now the issue is we need to upgrade the memory to 8 GB but the memory is detected by the bios itself, Operating system is not able to detect it, it is showing 3096MB of memory,

After a lot of googling i came to know the solution i.e I need to install the Bigmem-kernel to detect the ram more than 4Gb,
can some body help me how to do this
or
is there any another solution for this to update operating system to detect the more RAM

please do the needful,

Thanks
Chandra sekhar

redgoblin · 11-09-2010, 07:44 AM

Debian 3.0 (Woody) is incredibly old. It was released in 2002 and went out of security coverage around 2005/6.

In all honesty I would look into whether or not you can upgrade that machine and the corresponding critical application. During that rebuild you could then install the appropriate big-mem kernel.

If you absolutely cannot upgrade then you should be able to install the new kernel using the original install medium. If that is missing you can get Debian 3.0 install images from the archive.

However, keep in mind that if this machine is on your network it possibly poses a significant security threat.

chandu.bezawada · 11-11-2010, 04:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by redgoblin

Debian 3.0 (Woody) is incredibly old. It was released in 2002 and went out of security coverage around 2005/6.

In all honesty I would look into whether or not you can upgrade that machine and the corresponding critical application. During that rebuild you could then install the appropriate big-mem kernel.

If you absolutely cannot upgrade then you should be able to install the new kernel using the original install medium. If that is missing you can get Debian 3.0 install images from the archive.

However, keep in mind that if this machine is on your network it possibly poses a significant security threat.

i got through the following link
http://www.linux.com/archive/articles/119287

they are saying that do some modifications for kernel configuration files and reconfigure the kernel it will work

can you please tell me is it work in my scenario

Thanks
Chandra

prayag_pjs · 11-11-2010, 04:44 AM

Hi,

You install the clean new bigmem kernel and when you boot select that kernel.

Refer this link:

http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/...ing+all+my+ram!

chandu.bezawada · 11-11-2010, 04:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by prayag_pjs

Hi,

You install the clean new bigmem kernel and when you boot select that kernel.

Refer this link:

http://knowledgelayer.softlayer.com/...ing+all+my+ram!

hi

can i do this with my 2.4 kernel also

and it has some applications running
is this up gradation to 2.6 bigmem will impact those

thanks
Chandra

cynwulf · 11-12-2010, 08:16 AM

Your options are limited. You can either upgrade to Lenny and install the 2.6 bigmem kernel or get and compile your own 2.4 kernel from kernel.org.

Dutch Master · 11-12-2010, 09:33 AM

+1 for a full upgrade. The 2.6 kernels rely on newer versions of various libraries, including libc6, the main library. Getting those on such an ancient system is going to be a PITA...