Only 1gb of 2gb of new ram I installed is showing?

[Gimili]

Only 1gb of 2gb of new ram I just installed is showing? I am running Sarge kernel 2.6.3-1-386. I am using this system as a file server. Any suggestions?

Thank you!

[techieMoe]

Are you sure your motherboard supports 2GB of RAM? Also, are you trying to mix registered and non-registered RAM?

[deek]

Depending on the distro, the kernel may not be supporting high amounts of RAM. I know that slackware 10.1 and 10.2 only allow up to 960MB of RAM by default, so in order to use my 1.5GB of RAM on my box, I would have to recompile the kernel for high memory (either up to 2 or 4GB, iirc) to access it.

Other distros and live cds I have used on the same box used all my RAM, so I doubt it you have an issue with mainboard limitations, it is probably a kernel thing.

BTW, I have yet to recompile my kernel and have just been chugging around with 960MB of RAM...

[Gimili]

Bios says there is 2048MB DDR SD Ram Dual. They are 4 identical 512MBs.

Recompile sounds like lots of work.

[deek]

I have that impression also (i.e. lots of work for a kernel recompilation), but I also thought compiling apps from source was a lot of work too, and it isn't.

And for high memory, it sounds like (from the reading I had done) that it is really only one "switch" and should be pretty easy. But, I have weighed my personal options, and the potential issues I could incur from recompilation, is not worth it to get me from just under 1GB of RAM being recognized, to having 1.5GB. I don't run anything right now on the box that needs the extra RAM, so I have just become content "dealing" with it, until I really feel the need to delve into recompilation of the kernel...

I am sure plenty of people will chime in, saying kernel recompilation if very easy...and if I see enough of those posts, then I will give it a try:)

Back to your direct question, sounds to me that your system does recognize the 2GB of RAM, but you will need to recompile your kernel for linux to use it.

[eerok]

As you've discovered, the debian vanilla kernels don't turn on highmem. If you have a 32-bit x86 processor with hyperthreading, this kernel image should solve your problem. I'm pretty sure this kernel turns on highmem.

If this is wrong or inappropriate, give us more info

Just so you know, recompiling just to turn on highmem is not that big a deal ... it's when you get in there and try to optimize everything in the kernel config that it gets complicated.

[Vergil83]

Recompile sounds like lots of work.

As a couple others have said, it isn't that bad. You can use the old config from your last kernel and just enable the option you need.
Here is the "offical debian way". Also, if you do a google search for compile kernel debian and you will get plenty of sites

[Gimili]

Hmm. I guess I will take a stab at it. I have only done fresh installs and changed program settings without any recompiles but there is a first time for everything. THanks for all the advice.

[Gimili]

Thanks for all the help. I upgraded to 2.6.8-2-686-smp and now it sees all of my ram. I did the following from this site http://arul.telenet-systems.com/info/kernel.php but with the version I mentioned:

4. Upgrading the kernel in Debian GNU/Linux
The latest stable kernel is 2.6.8.1 (http://www.kernel.org) and is available at http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kern...ch-2.6.8.1.bz2
To check your current kernel version
uname -a
Upgrading the Linux kernel to 2.6.8.1 (the latest)
apt-get install kernel-image-2.6.8-1-686 kernel-source-2.6.8 kernel-headers-2.6.8-1-686
cd /usr/src
tar xjvf kernel-source-2.6.8.tar.bz2
rm linux
ln -s kernel-source-2.6.8 linux