Date: Fri, 23 Oct 1998 15:34:49 -0400 From: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> To: "Geoffrey Robinson" <geoffr@globalserve.net>, "questions@freebsd.org" <questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Installing on a System with Too Much RAM Message-ID: <199810231936.PAA07035@laker.net>
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On Fri, 23 Oct 1998 14:09:30 -0400, Geoffrey Robinson wrote: <snip> > >Yes there is a file called boot.config on the floppy. It's empty though. try putting the iosize command in there... It's still possibly too late in the boot process... >> Maybe someone else has more ideas, but I believe another option might >> be to have someone build a GENERIC kernel limited to 32MB for you and >> let you download it from somewhere. >> >> On the other hand, maybe your problem is really something else, because >> the GENERIC kernel often doesn't see memory above 64MB. Perhaps your >> motherboard's BIOS is able to report all your memory, but seems >> unlikely. > >Yes it does, I checked with the company that sold it See, I confused you too. It's tough to communicate in email and be thorough, yet concise. What I was trying to say, is that many motherboards have a mechanism for reporting memory size that FreeBSD doesn't know about. Most people that write to this list that need to know about MAXMEM or this iosize trick have a system with over 64MB, but only 64MB is detected by FreeBSD. We're on a path where we believe your machine is reporting the full 1GB to FreeBSD and that's causing a panic. When you boot the GENERIC kernel during install, did you look at the "avail memory" reported by FreeBSD? > >> If no one else has any ideas, I'd be willing to build a 32MB limited >> GENERIC kernel and post it on my web site... > >That would be very helpful if you can do it. I tried copying a FBSD 2.2.5 >kernel from another computer onto the boot floppy but it didn't work. Just >booted like it does on the other computer and panicked when it discovered >there was nothing on the drive. >> Another possible option: >> can you remove some of the memory until after the install?? If you >> could do that, you could verify that too much memory is indeed the >> problem, and we can then determine how much will work. > >Not an option. There are 4 X 256M dimms, I was going to replace them with a >64M dimm for the install but the motherboard requires a minimum of four >dimms so short of buying 4 X 16M dimms I can't do that. > >There has got to be a way of doing this without removing memory. FreeBSD >seems way to smart for this to be a problem. Yea, but the technology keeps evolving and FreeBSD (or anything else) can very well predict an interface, either hardware, firmware, or software spec. There are possible problems with me building a GENERIC kernel that I didn't think about before. I'm tracking -stable and there could be problems using a kernel I build with the rest of 2.2.7R that you have. If someone else on the list has a virgin 2.2.7R, and would be willing to build a GENERIC kernel with MAXMEM set to 64MB or less, they would be best. Unix systems measure "uptime" in years, Winblows measures it in minutes. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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