I was screwing around with a VM and tried to install slackware-current (non64) with 128/256MB of RAM.
Kernel Panic with 'deadlocked' memory error. Is this normal? Once I upped the RAM to 1GB everything was fine.
Perhaps booting with some kernel parameters from the minimum install ISO would help?
No big deal just curious. Some people like to use Slack on older machines with a lot less RAM

Here the installer for Slacware64-14.2 works with 256M in a Qemu VM. From there you can set up a swap partition before installing.

I can only speak for 14.2 x64, because that's what I experimented on in VirtualBox but in https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:mi...slackware_tips it says:

I'd welcome the updated figure for -current to add to that guide, if you can be bothered to work out what it is .

How low do you want to go? You won't need the same amount of memory for first boot, because a lot is used up by the initrd during install.

I installed 14.2 on a Pentium3 with 512Mb of RAM, so it is possible. I don't recall running into any issues regarding installation.

I'll try messing around with the RAM setting today and find out when the Kernel chokes. Again this was -current and it failed in the installer boot before I could ever get to a prompt. Some time after decompressing the initrd. Will check back in later about it.

1 members found this post helpful.

That will be awesome, thanks!

The Slackware Slackware-HOWTO, Hardware Requirements, states:

"128 megabytes (128MB) or more of RAM. If you have less RAM than this, you might still be able to install, but if so don't expect the best possible experience."

Years ago when distro design started presuming lots of modern RAM, I would temporarily move a hard disk (HD) to another system with sufficient RAM and bus speed. I would disconnect the system HD and install the distro to the temporary HD. Before powering down I would remove /etc/udev/rules.d/70-persistent-net.rules and then return the temporary HD to the original system.

Playing with VMs means lots of latitude to experiment. Install with sufficient RAM. Then experiment with how little RAM suffices before experiencing degrees of pain.

If the host system has limited RAM, a desire to limit the RAM in the VM is expected. I remember my early days of using VMs and had the same issue. I would allow sufficient RAM to install and thereafter reduce the allocated RAM on the VM.

I maintain some old Windows VMs for archival reasons. One VM is for NT4 with 128 MB RAM and two W2K systems with 256 MB RAM. The systems are really fast on my modern 4-core.

Another idea to consider with limited RAM is use 32-bit distros. Thankfully Slackware still provides full support for 32-bit. I have two old bare-metals with Slackware 14.1 32-bit installed. One system has only 256 MB RAM. On bare-metal the system is sluggish but in a VM the system would scream.

The kernel supports a mem parameter that can help simulate limited RAM. For example mem=xxM, where xx is the amount of RAM.

This thread makes me feel old, having used a computer with 64K of RAM.

Well Didier feel old no longer. My first computer had 1k: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZX81
Santa neglected to deliver it with the 16k ram pack, much to my annoyance .

OK I just walked through a bunch of memory settings
Everything before 384MB raised a kernel panic on boot right after or during "trying to unpack rootfs on initramfs"
When I used 384MB the installer would boot to command prompt.
Can someone try this on qemu or virtualbox to see if it happens to them? Again, Slackware -Current non 64bit.

Thanks,

1 members found this post helpful.

VirtualBox 5.28, 14.2 32-bit. With less than 236 MB RAM I experienced a kernel panic with the install ISO. After a full install I reduced RAM to 64 MB and the system booted. Running the free command indicated a system running with 45 MB of RAM.

I did not test a generic kernel.

Perhaps the Slackware-HOWTO, Hardware Requirements, should read:

"Installation requires 256 megabytes (256MB) or more of RAM...."

1 members found this post helpful.

In this case I think I need to re-run my experiment with 64-bit. This should get a bit easier once I iron out all the issues with vagaslack.

There IS quite a difference between 14.2 (4.4 kernel) and -current (4.19) in memory requirements:
if I take the "generic" kernel (that will need a initrd, but then the installer will need an initramfs anyway):
On top of the kernel come the "needed modules" for your system and the initramfs for the root fs to run the installer from. And note that that is the compressed kernel, in-memory it will be quite a bit larger.

Okeydokey. Scrub the 14.2 test. I ran another VirtualBox 32-bit VM with Current. I could not boot the install disk with less than 335 MB RAM.

I did not test bare-metal.

Edit: A quick bare-metal test with Current 32-bit shows the same results. Running hugesmp.s mem=336M booted successfully. With mem=335 the system hung. No panic, just hung. The not-bleeding-edge test machine:

ASUS M3N78-EM motherboard Rev 1.01G
AMD 5050e 2.6 GHz Dual Core CPU
8 GB PC-5300 667 MHz DDR2 RAM
Nvidia MCP78S controller
On-board video: GeForce 8300

Yeah based on this thread and what I've seen, loading the modules seems tobe where things explode violently. Good job on narrowing down the memory to 335 upnort

I'll test that out myself tonight to confirm.