[NBLUG/talk] Memory

[Mansur, Warren]

> If free says you have 128MB, then that's all the OS can see.  You can
> cat /proc/meminfo for a little more info, but it will tell 
> you the same
> thing since that what the free command does internally anyhow.
> 
> Try passing the amount of memory to the kernel at boot.
> In lilo you'd add an append line:
> append = "mem=480M"

I used to have to do this several years ago when I was using an old version of Debian, because it didn't detect all of the RAM. But recently I've found the distributions seem to detect the memory size automatically.

Just an FYI, there is an emergency boot CD available that will give a report on your hardware, including your memory size. Just pop it in the CD drive (assuming it's bootable), and then choose the 'hardware information/test' option after boot. This is useful in case of some hardware problems or to find the real size of your memory. You can get it here at http://ebcd.pcministry.com/.

It also has some other options such as rescuing linux, or changing a user's password on a windows NT/2000/XP installation.

Cheers,

Warren