asked on

M1 ThinkCentre: Linux: 4Gmem: Why only see 2.5G?

I have an IBM ThinkCentre, model M1. I just upgraded from 2.5 to 4 gigs of memory.

I am running Kubuntu 8.04 Linux on my desktop. When I run th free command, I get the following:

$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2534 2461 72 0 20 843
-/+ buffers/cache: 1598 935
Swap: 3820 1105 2714

It is showing only 2.5g memory but 1.5g in cache.

Is this normal? When I run free on my Centos server with 12g of memory, I have all 11.5g in memory and only .5g in cache.

Is there a way to change this? Should I?

BTW--I've checked the bios settings and don't see anything obvious to change.

Thanks,
Frank

kagenokaze

Ubuntu is most likely taking advantage of the added memory to cache more in order to decrease load times. When your memory usage increases it will release cache for those applications. As long as you don't run out of memory due to the cache I would just leave it.

kagenokaze

Kubuntu sorry :)

ibanja

ASKER

Thanks kagenokaze,

Hmm, sounds plausible, except the memory amount never changes. I would think when I start running those 3 extra virtual machines on VMware that the memory would increase.. or would it. In any case. It never seems to change.

kagenokaze

Ha... Ok I read that wrong its the way I originally thought it was.
The OS only sees the first 2.5GB of memory. The cache is normal but the total size is off.

Are you using Kubuntu AMD64? 32 bit versions of any OS cannot use the full 4GB of memory.

ibanja

ASKER

I am using 32 bit version, but I am also running 32 bit on my server. Notice my server output:

# getconf LONG_BIT
32

kagenokaze

The 32 Bit versions of Centos and Kubuntu can see and use up to 64GB of ram but only if you run the server based kernels which have PAE enabled. This package will only work if you have a PAE capable processor. This will come at a cost compared to the 64 bit version though because you will be limited to the max memory the 32 bit os can support per process. Most likely the Centos install is using the PAE kernel by default.

To Install:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo sudo apt-get install linux-headers-server linux-image-server linux-server

Open in new window

ibanja

ASKER

Yup, my server is running the PAE kernel.

$ uname -s -r
Linux 2.6.18-164.11.1.el5PAE

I have installed the server kernel to try it out. I can't reboot my computer for a few hours since I have some data feeds running that shouldn't be disconnected. I'll let you know how this works once I do.

I guess the question is, what drivers will I loose using the server kernel?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

kagenokaze

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

ibanja

ASKER

It's still only seeing 2.5gigs of memory.

$ uname -s -r
Linux 2.6.24-26-server

$ free -m
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 2533 1937 596 0 72 462
-/+ buffers/cache: 1402 1131
Swap: 3820 0 3820

Looks like the best thing to do is install the 64bit version.

Thanks for the help.