RHEL5 Server installed on an i386 machine with 8GB of RAM does not install a PAE kernel, and is thus limited to 4GB of the installed 8GB RAM. Linux version 2.6.18-1.3002.el5 (brewbuilder.redhat.com) (gcc version 4.1.1 20070105 (Red Hat 4.1.1-51)) #1 SMP Tue Jan 9 21:19:11 EST 2007 BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009ec00 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000000009ec00 - 0000000000100000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000009f91c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009f91c000 - 000000009f9d3000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009f9d3000 - 000000009fa42000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa42000 - 000000009fa9a000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa9a000 - 000000009fab0000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fab0000 - 000000009fb1a000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb1a000 - 000000009fb2c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb2c000 - 000000009fb3a000 (ACPI data) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb3a000 - 000000009fc00000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 00000000ffc00000 - 00000000ffc0c000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000260000000 (usable) Warning only 4GB will be used. Use a PAE enabled kernel. 3200MB HIGHMEM available. 896MB LOWMEM available.
FC6 has the same problem: Linux version 2.6.18-1.2798.fc6 (brewbuilder.redhat.com) (gcc version 4.1.1 20061011 (Red Hat 4.1.1-30)) #1 SMP Mon Oct 16 14:37:32 EDT 2006 BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009ec00 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000000009ec00 - 0000000000100000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000009f91c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009f91c000 - 000000009f9d3000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009f9d3000 - 000000009fa42000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa42000 - 000000009fa9a000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa9a000 - 000000009fab0000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fab0000 - 000000009fb1a000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb1a000 - 000000009fb2c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb2c000 - 000000009fb3a000 (ACPI data) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb3a000 - 000000009fc00000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 00000000ffc00000 - 00000000ffc0c000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000260000000 (usable) Warning only 4GB will be used. Use a PAE enabled kernel. 3200MB HIGHMEM available. 896MB LOWMEM available.
OpenSuse 10.2 does not have this problem -- it handles the full 8GB: Linux version 2.6.18.2-34-bigsmp (geeko@buildhost) (gcc version 4.1.2 20061115 (prerelease) (SUSE Linux)) #1 SMP Mon Nov 27 11:46:27 UTC 2006 BIOS-provided physical RAM map: BIOS-e820: 0000000000000000 - 000000000009ec00 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000000009ec00 - 0000000000100000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000000100000 - 000000009f91c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009f91c000 - 000000009f9d3000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009f9d3000 - 000000009fa42000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa42000 - 000000009fa9a000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 000000009fa9a000 - 000000009fab0000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fab0000 - 000000009fb1a000 (ACPI NVS) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb1a000 - 000000009fb2c000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb2c000 - 000000009fb3a000 (ACPI data) BIOS-e820: 000000009fb3a000 - 000000009fc00000 (usable) BIOS-e820: 00000000ffc00000 - 00000000ffc0c000 (reserved) BIOS-e820: 0000000100000000 - 0000000260000000 (usable) 8832MB HIGHMEM available. 896MB LOWMEM available.
Is this fixed in 5.0 GA?