[syslinux] pxelinux 2.11 unable to mount root fs

[Salman Haq]

On Apr 17, 2005, at 5:01 AM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
>
> I suspect the problem in this case is that he crossed the 512 MB 
> limit.  If the ramdisk limit is configured to be 512 MB, *or* if he 
> runs out of memory during the uncompress, this will fail.
>
> You need at least 2x the memory of the initrd.
>

Yes, my uncompressed ramdisk size is 517 MB. So I'm definitely over the 
512 MB limit you mentioned.

If I understand correctly, the Linux kernel is only able to access 1 GB 
of memory (whereas user processes can access 4 GB or more depending on 
the kernel compile options).

Does this mean that we are limited by the fact that the ramdisk needs 
to fit within 512 MB because the kernel needs twice as much memory as 
the ramdisk (in order to load it) AND it cannot address memory beyond 
1GB?

Thanks,

Salman