[syslinux] Syslinux Mem= greater than 4096M

Kevin Sullivan ksullaustin at gmail.com
Fri Feb 3 22:00:31 PST 2012


On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 10:33 PM, Gene Cumm <gene.cumm at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 22:48, Kevin Sullivan <ksullaustin at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi Shao,
> >
> > I have several boot options, but here is one example:
> >
> > LABEL less
> >    MENU LABEL Up to 64 GB System RAM
> >    KERNEL /boot/vmlinuz-3.1.10-b1
> >    APPEND pci=nommconf vga=773 mem=256M initrd=/boot/initrd-3.1.10-b1.img
> >
> > This boots a Linux kernel that can only "see" 256 MB.  If I set mem=4097
> or
> > greater, I get the error message.
>
> Same error with 'mem=4352M' ?  mem should be interpreted by the core
> for load alignments by the Syslinux core.
>
> --
> -Gene
>
> Gene,

Interesting.  It does not show the error with mem=4352M.  However, the
kernel is only showing about 3.3 GB total RAM after it boots.  I do not
understand the concept that you mention of "mem should be interpreted by
the core for load alignments by the Syslinux core.  Could you give insight
into how you picked this number and/or how I can select safer larger
numbers?  For my particular situation,  I probably only need to reach the
mem=8192M range.  As an FYI, mem=4095M only gives me 3.0 GB free, so your
answer is already proving helpful.

Thanks,

-Mark





> > On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 7:13 PM, Shao Miller <Shao.Miller at yrdsb.edu.on.ca
> >wrote:
> >
> >> On 2/3/2012 19:34, Kevin Sullivan wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi Everyone. I have a question that I have researched, but cannot find
> an
> >>> answer. I was wondering if any of the syslinux guru's might have some
> >>> suggestions for me. We use syslinux (4.04) to boot a specialized USB
> >>> distribution of Linux that requires the mem= flag to be added to the
> >>> syslinux.cfg file. The mem= flag is a requirement as this is a custom
> >>> kernel distribution that uses kernel modules in a highly specialized
> >>> manner. I can set mem= all the way up to 4096M, but at 4097 and
> greater, I
> >>> get the error message of:
> >>>
> >>> Not enough memory to load specified image.
> >>>
> >>> We have a boot CD port of this same distribution using the legacy
> (grub 1)
> >>> boot, and it accepts mem= to levels tested as high as 8192M.
> >>>
> >>> Now, obviously, I'm likely hitting a 32 bit syslinux limitation, but we
> >>> love using syslinux on our USB distribution as it boots on every system
> >>> that we test on, whereas grub has proven to be problematic.
> >>>
> >>> So, can anyone suggest a method for us to pass a mem= 4097M or greater?
> >>>
> >>> Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Or, on another note,
> would
> >>> grub2 be a viable bootloader for USB storage?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks,
> >>>
> >>> -Kevin
> >>
> >> I could be mistaken, but I don't recall 'mem=' being a Syslinux
> anything.
> >>  What does the Syslinux LABEL paragraph have in it, if you please?  -
> Shao
>
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