Increased RAM but Linux can not see it

davholla · 02-18-2011, 05:47 AM

I have increased my RAM from 2 MB to 4MB, Vista can see most of it(it can't see more because it is 32 bits)
but when I run Virtual box I can only see up to 2MB of memory.
Is there anything I can do to fix this?

druuna · 02-18-2011, 06:22 AM

Hi,

Are you actually talking about Mb or should that be Gb?

Aquarius_Girl · 02-18-2011, 06:32 AM

You might like to execute this:

Code:

free -m

Code:

free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           884        833         51          0         35        349
-/+ buffers/cache:        447        436
Swap:            0          0          0

Sorry I meant mb

---------- Post added 02-18-11 at 01:14 PM ----------

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnsfine

I'm sure you meant GB, not MB. So everything you just reported is normal.

32 bit Windows limits the whole system to 3 and a fraction GB (size of that fraction determined by the BIOS, not by Windows itself. Typically 3/8 GB).

32 bit Windows limits each process under it to 2GB. So if you virtualize another OS under 32 bit Windows, that other OS should be limited to 2GB.

Sorry I meant when I use VirtualBox in Mandriva Linux. I can only see 2GB.

onebuck · 02-18-2011, 08:42 AM

Hi,

Same is true with Gnu/Linux if the 32 bit kernel is being used and no PAE .

davholla · 02-18-2011, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by onebuck

Hi,

Same is true with Gnu/Linux if the 32 bit kernel is being used and no PAE .

Thanks for that I will look at installing at 64 bit version.
What is PAE? Is it Physical Address Extension?

onebuck · 02-18-2011, 10:26 AM

Hi,

Check out Physical Address Extension.

jefro · 02-18-2011, 04:15 PM

32 bit linux can use more than 2 G.

What you said is virtualbox can't see it. That is not the same issue at all.

onebuck · 02-18-2011, 05:25 PM

Hi,

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

32 bit linux can use more than 2 G.

What you said is virtualbox can't see it. That is not the same issue at all.

Without PAE for 32bit your not going to see more than 4GB.

TobiSGD · 02-18-2011, 06:53 PM

Even if you use PAE, you can not assign more than 2GB to a single application. If you want to do that you have to use a 64 bit OS.

jefro · 02-18-2011, 08:22 PM

You should be able to use systune to adjust that up.

TobiSGD · 02-19-2011, 05:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

You should be able to use systune to adjust that up.

Didn't know that, I should have a look at it.

davholla · 02-19-2011, 02:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jefro

You should be able to use systune to adjust that up.

How? I like my Mandriva setting but I want to be able to use it and another Linux inside virtual box at the same time but it is so slow that I can't do so.

jefro · 02-19-2011, 06:19 PM

Virtual box ought to provide a 1 gig per machine and maybe more if you want.

I think you are in a no win situation. Stay with 32 bit an you loose a bit of ram but go with 64 bit and really gain very little and run the problem of a full upgrade. If test system then go with 64 bit but you will not speed up anything. In fact by the time you end up, the net gain will be nill.

The base system is going to eat up a lot of ram as well the each VM overhead. Even if you move to 64 bit you still can't access all of the 4G. You might get lucky to get 2.2 left for the entire VM. Then you'd have to split that at 120% loss for each vm or more.

Post your systems specs. They may not be fully vm supported.