Topic: esmith amd RAM

[gustav]

I have 320MB of RAM (dual processor).  Esmith didnt recognize it (memory), so I added a line to lilo.conf.  Is the right place?  Now when I boot and do    cat /proc/meminfo, it shows almost 100% memory useage.  This is just after I boot up!!!  Why is it using all of my ram...and what is going on here.

[Justin]

gustav wrote:
>
> I have 320MB of RAM (dual processor).

Sweet.

 Esmith didnt recognize
> it (memory), so I added a line to lilo.conf.  Is the right
> place?  

Should be, if you could be more detailed in what exact changes you made we I could confirm.

>Now when I boot and do    cat /proc/meminfo, it shows
> almost 100% memory useage.  
> Why is it using all of my ram...and what is going on here.

Keep in mind the linux kernel uses all available "dormant" memory and then releases it to applications when needed.

[gustav]

This is my lilo entry

image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22smp
        append="mem=320M"
        label=esmith
        read-only
        root=/dev/hda6

[root@luna /etc]# cat /proc/meminfo
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  330108928 324714496  5394432 107696128 262209536 23527424
Swap: 271392768        0 271392768
MemTotal:    322372 kB
MemFree:       5268 kB
MemShared:   105172 kB
Buffers:     256064 kB
Cached:       22976 kB
BigTotal:         0 kB
BigFree:          0 kB
SwapTotal:   265032 kB
SwapFree:    265032 kB

[Justin]

Looks good to me although I would have expected the "MemShared: 105172 kB" number to be higher.

I haven't used a linux box with that much memory yet so it may be normal. This would be a good question to the RedHat list since this is not really an e-smith specific function.

[Robert Boerner]

Just double checking, but should it be

320M

or

320MB?

gustav wrote:
>
> This is my lilo entry
>
> image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.2.16-22smp
>         append="mem=320M"
>         label=esmith
>         read-only
>         root=/dev/hda6
>
> [root@luna /etc]# cat /proc/meminfo
>         total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
> Mem:  330108928 324714496  5394432 107696128 262209536 23527424
> Swap: 271392768        0 271392768
> MemTotal:    322372 kB
> MemFree:       5268 kB
> MemShared:   105172 kB
> Buffers:     256064 kB
> Cached:       22976 kB
> BigTotal:         0 kB
> BigFree:          0 kB
> SwapTotal:   265032 kB
> SwapFree:    265032 kB

[evangelos santiago]

I believe it is supposed to be append="mem=320M"

at least any reference to it I ever saw displayed it as such.