Re: 2.4.0-test4 Out Of Memory ?!

From: Richard B. Johnson (root@chaos.analogic.com)
Date: Thu Jul 27 2000 - 11:08:58 EST


On Thu, 27 Jul 2000, Justin C. Ferguson wrote:

> When last we left our heros, they were speaking of:
>
> I tried recompiling with the CPU type set to 586 this morning,
> and got the same results, as well as when I tried adding mem=224m on the
> lilo boot command line. No go. :-< Anyone else have advice? I'm beginning
> to wonder if maybe it isn't a processor or MoBo problem, but I don't want to
> spend the money for a new one right now, so I'm hoping somebody will have some
> other suggestions.
>
> JF

         Out of memory
-- System halted.

Is most always caused by a bad BIOS returning the incorrect amount of
memory.

This can be fixed by adding the 'mem=' parameter to any 'append=' string
being passed to lilo in its configuration. I am not aware that there
is an explicit 'mem=' command for Lilo. If so, it doesn't work on
the version I use and it's not documented. From the documentation, and
from actual usage, I find that parameters to be passed to the kernel
take the form of a space-delimited string in quotes, like:

        append="console=ttyS1,9600 mem=24m hd=64,32,202 nfsroot=/home/nfs"

This is put into lilo.conf or on the command line as:

/sbin/lilo -C - <<EOF
        boot = /dev/fd0
        map = /mnt/map
        backup = /dev/null
        compact
        vga = normal
        install = /mnt/boot.b
        image = /mnt/vmlinuz
        append = "console=ttyS1,9600 mem=24m hd=64,32,202 nfsroot=/home/nfs"
        ...
        ...
        ...
EOF

Once the kernel is told to ignore the BIOS memory size, by the presence
of "mem=", it should boot. FYI the kernel will still boot with only
8 megs of RAM, it used to boot with only 4!. You can use mem=16m to force
sanity, then work up from there.

Cheers,
Dick Johnson

Penguin : Linux version 2.2.15 on an i686 machine (797.90 BogoMips).

"Memory is like gasoline. You use it up when you are running. Of
course you get it all back when you reboot..."; Actual explanation
obtained from the Micro$oft help desk.

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