Bug 28670

Summary:	Kernel 2.2.17-14smp only detects 896MB out of 1024MB
Product:	[Retired] Red Hat Linux	Reporter:	Gernot <gernot>
Component:	kernel	Assignee:	Michael K. Johnson <johnsonm>
Status:	CLOSED NOTABUG	QA Contact:	Brock Organ <borgan>
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	medium
Version:	6.2
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	i386
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2001-02-21 20:08:28 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Gernot 2001-02-21 19:49:20 UTC

From Bugzilla Helper:
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The BIOS detects the 1024MB correctly, but the kernel writes the following 
message to /var/log/messages:
Feb
19 14:18:55 fire kernel: Warning only 896MB will be used.

Reproducible: Didn't try

 Hi, 

My machine has 1024MB RAM installed and the BIOS also shows the 1024MB
correctly. But, Linux seems to have a problem with it as you can see at 
the below
lines: 

Feb 19 14:18:54 fire kernel: Symbols match kernel version 2.2.17. Feb 19
14:18:55 fire kernel: Loaded 27 symbols from 2 modules. Feb 19 14:18:55 
fire kernel:
Linux version 2.2.17-14smp (root.redhat.com) (gcc version
egcs-2.91.66 19990314/Linux (egcs-1.1.2 release)) #1 SMP Mon Feb 5 
18:40:03 EST 2001 Feb
19 14:18:55 fire kernel: Warning only 896MB will be used. 

This is the error I get in the /var/log/messages file. The output of
/proc/meminfo is: 

total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached: Mem: 928161792 397012992 
531148800
1147170816 38400000 81252352 Swap: 808255488 0 808255488 MemTotal: 906408 
kB
MemFree: 518700 kB MemShared: 1120284 kB Buffers: 37500 kB Cached: 79348 kB
BigTotal: 0 kB BigFree: 0 kB SwapTotal: 789312 kB SwapFree: 789312 kB 

I already tried to add the appaned="mem=1024M" line to lilo.conf with no
success too. 

I'm using the standard Redhat kernel (RPM packages) 2.2.17-14smp (It's a 
Dual
CPU machine). 


This looks like it's a bug in the kernel 2.2.17-14smp. Can anyone confirm 
this?

If you need further information, please contact me ( gernot@321host-
it.com )

Thanks in advance, 

Gernot

Comment 1 Gernot 2001-02-21 20:08:25 UTC

Sorry, I meant:

append="mem=1024M"

I also tried:

append="mem=1020M"
since it was suggested by a fellow technician :) Same results: none :)

Comment 2 Michael K. Johnson 2001-02-22 00:12:52 UTC

Use the enterprise kernel for that

The top 128M of that 1GB of memory is reserved for kernel virtual mappings.