Mandrake 9.2 not Finding all RAM

jjo135 · 02-20-2004, 05:01 PM

I have a Dell Dimension 8300 running Mandrake 9.2

Everything seems to be up and running just fine, however, I noticed today that the system monitor was only finding 882M of memory (I have 2GB)

Code:

$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:           882        191        690          0          9         82
-/+ buffers/cache:         99        782
Swap:          494          0        494

I read some post that suggested I edit lilo.conf and add "mem=2048M" to the append section, but that seems to have had no effect.

Can anyone offer some guidance as to where I should go from here?

PS - here is the output of meminfo if it will help

Code:

# cat /proc/meminfo 
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  925843456 205709312 720134144        0 10891264 87855104
Swap: 518152192        0 518152192
MemTotal:       904144 kB
MemFree:        703256 kB
MemShared:           0 kB
Buffers:         10636 kB
Cached:          85796 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:          43588 kB
Inactive:        52964 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       904144 kB
LowFree:        703256 kB
SwapTotal:      506008 kB
SwapFree:       506008 kB

DrOzz · 02-20-2004, 07:44 PM

what is the output of the following command :
cat /usr/src/linux/.config | grep CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM

pzatch · 02-21-2004, 12:12 AM

Try upgrading to the i686 kernel for over one gig of memory. It works for me. The system runs much faster for me now.
Post back if you nee help with URPMI and installing the new kernel.

vincebs · 02-21-2004, 01:42 AM

Yeah, as the people here are saying, your problem might be (not 100% sure) due to your kernel not supporting large quantities of memory. Try looking for a kernel that supports high memory and install it, or download the full kernel source from kernel.org and compile it.

jjo135 · 02-23-2004, 10:43 AM

All -

Thank you for the prompt and informative replies. You were all on the right track. CONFIG_NOHIGHMEM=y was part of my boot configuration.

NB: I was able to find the config file at /boot/config as opposed to /usr/src/linux/.config

However, rather than installing a new kernel, I was able to simply switch to using the Mandrake Enterprise kernel (vmlinuz-2.4.22-10mdkenterprise) which is installed alongside the regular kernel. A quick switch to lilo.conf and I am now finding all my memory.

I had oringally chosen not to go with the enterprise kernel because I wasn't planning on using the machine as a server, but apparently high memory support is part and parcel with the enterprise kernel.

Perhaps one day, when I am more knowledgeable I will custom build a kernel, but that day is not today.

Thanks for your help everyone.

vrn953 · 02-27-2004, 06:09 PM

Hi jjo135,

When you bootup, how much memory does top or free tell you is being used? I am also running mandrake 9.2 enterprise kernel and have 2GB memory. When I bootup free says 1.3GB is being use and I haven't even started anything!

Vincent

pzatch · 02-27-2004, 09:12 PM

Your amount of memory being used is fine. It's one of the things of linux. It will use memory the best and fastest ways it can. Using 1.3 gig also means its not using as much if any swap memory which is slower.
Don't worry about it, Linux will clear it out or pass it on to swap as more is needed for running prossesses.
Many people who are only running a desk top never even make a swap partition because it will never get used. Running a server of any type is a different story.