Stuart Powell wrote:
My dual P233 box with 192MB RAM running the 2.2.16-SMP kernel doesn't need any special lilo parameters either. It's on a Tyan board. I think it depends greatly on the BIOS memory reporting as to how much the kernel will automatically pick up. It is also my understanding that the append="mem=xxxM" (don't forget the second "=") does not cause the kernel to check the amount of memory. You could tell a 64MB system that it has 1024MB, but it will run slowly since it will always be paging. The append parameter simply tells the kernel how much memory it can assume is available, and it trusts you to enter the correct amount.
Thank you for clarifying this.
I wonder if this is one of those AMI v Award v Phoenix v Other BIOS
issues.
It is also important to make sure that your BIOS does in fact see the full RAM. My mobo required that slower memory (60ns v 50ns) be placed in the SIMM slots closest to the controller chip. Until I got the physical SIMMs in the right order (three attempts), the BIOS would only register 64MB or 128MB, so no amount of append= could help me there. Once the memory was arranged properly, the BIOS saw it all, and so did Linux.
Interesting theory. I do know that the BIOS reports the correct amount of memory on my machine as I sit and watch it count up to 512MB everytime it reboots (which is quite frequent at the moment as I am experimenting with alternative lilo parameters for other things at present as well). Also WinNT 4.0 also correctly detects the amount of RAM, but fails to detect the second processor curiously. ("15 all" I think on this one ;-) I would tell you the BIOS but that I can't remember and the machine is in the middle of some serious number crunching otherwise I'd reboot and check for you. Cheers, Mark