Re: passing "mem=???" to the kernel

[ktb <ktb@nixnotes.org>]

On Wed, Jul 04, 2001 at 11:43:24PM -0400, Noah Meyerhans wrote:
> When is it necessary to pass the "mem" parameter to the kernel?  I was
> under the impression that it should no longer be necessary; that newer
> kernels would always find whatever memory was available.  However, I
> recently doubled the RAM on one of my systems (from 128 to 256 MB) but
> the new RAM is not found.  I've never really seen a good explanation of
> why the kernel is not always able to find all the RAM, or under what
> circumstances it happens.  I have several other machines contain from
> 256 to 1024 MB RAM, and they see all the RAM just fine.

I can't give you a technical dissertation but it has to do with
the bios.  Even though the newer kernels, since 2.2 IIRC, can detect the
added ram it won't work with some bioses.  This is the explanation I
have seen come across deb-user.  You could probably find better info
in the archives than I have provided there.
kent       



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 From seeing and seeing the seeing has become so exhausted
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