Topic: Memory problem after upgrading from 5.5 to 5.6 (lilo.conf re

[Lars H]

Hi,

I have recently upgraded my Compaq Proliant 2500 from SME 5.5 to 5.6. The machine suffers from the known problem of installed memory not being correctly registered by Linux.

In my previous 5.5 installation I sorted this out by editing the lilo.conf file and adding the >append="mem=256M"< line and everything worked like a dream.

Now, after successfully installing a fresh copy of SME 5.6 the same lilo.conf modification no longer does the trick for me
Apparently, only about 14M is being used by the system resulting in endless disk swapping ! Left running the machine eventually suffocates and goes into a deadlock.

Any ideas that will help me solve the problem will be highly appreciated !

Thanks,
Lars


PS: I already posted this question earlier, but didn't get any response what so ever. I still hope someone has a clue to solving this problem....

[Andrew TD]

Hello Lars,

I think I am experiencing a similar problem to your on a Compaq ProSignia 500 - Pentium 150, with 144Mb installed.
I am trying to install SmeServer 5.6 - the server wouldn't boot off the CD ROM, so I cut the boot diskette using the itility on the CD ROM and tried booting off that. It booted - but failed sometime later saying it didn't have enough memory.

Do you think 5.6 can run OK on this h/w, and if so is there a lilo.conf file on the boot diskette that I can modify - or does something else need to be done?


By the way,  did you ever fix your problem of not being able to use all your memory?

Regards Andrew TD

[Joshua]

I've added all seemingly appropriate lines to lili.conf and cat /proc/meminfo still only shows MemTotal: 13516 kB

Did you guys ever figure this one out? I messed with grub, but 5.6 doesn't seem to use grub? Maybe I'm stupid.

[Andrew TD]

Hi Joshua,

I had issues with two Compaq servers (a Prosignia 500 and just recently a Proliant 2500) that I tried to install SmeServer 5.5, 5.6 & 6.03Beta on.

In all cases I needed to specify, "linux mem=xyzM" at the "boot:" prompt, at install time. (where xyz is the total amount of RAM available in Mbytes)

That was enough to get past that hurdle. Unfortunately the next problem I came across was SmeServer not recognising the Compaq Smart 2 RAID array controllers in my systems!

I have not yet succeeded in installing SmeServer on either of those two servers - but as a learning exercise have got RedHat 9 installed on the Prosignia 500, and as i write this, RedHat 6.2 is installing on my Proliant 2500. (I couldn't get Red Hat 9 or Fedora to recognise the Compaq Array card - but RH 6.2 does)

I'm afraid that none of the above may be helping you - sorry about that - unless you try a re-install with that initial linux mem=xyzM.

Good luck.

Andrew TD

[Joshua]

Thanks Andrew! I finally fixed the mem append, I had to do the whole line; accept = mem=exactmap mem=256K@0 mem=255M@1M instead of just the append="mem=256M