[9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[chuckf]

Hallo,
 I read this in the archives regarding the Compaq. I"m having the same
problem with physical memory. I don"t quite understand how you overcame it.

Can you explain in more detail? Do i copy another program to the floppy..like
"9pccd.gz" Does it contain a different swap routine?  Do I need a utility program?
I tried "swapon" and named a linuxswap portion... didn't help.


........from archives 2005 July......
The major installation problem was that the system was constantly 
running out of physical memory during the distmount phase. After a 
bunch of hunting and exploration, it looked like the kernel was only 
reporting about 3k free pages of free physical memory, with about 16k 
pages of swap (approx numbers). 

I managed to get the plan9 partion 'preped' with a swap, so after 
copying the swap utility from the plan9 boot image (9pccd.gz) to a 
shared ext2 partition i was able to use it from the plan9 install image 
(9pcflop.gz) and fire up the swap file so I could sucessfully perform 
the install. 

Everything went smoothly with the install after that and I'm now 
booting plan9 from the harddrive using grub. :) 

After this experience, I have a feeling that either there's a bug in my 
comp's mainboard which causes problems with the physical memory 
calculation or (since I don't know much about the kernel yet) it has a 
hardcoded max somewhere that is limiting my available memory. Any 
comments on this problem or suggestions on how to fix it? 

And finally, I would suggest to the iso maintainers that they put the 
swap utility in the 9pcflop.gz image and some instructions in the 
installation/installer to enable the swap file when it's created so 
others don't have this kind of problem.

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[erik quanstrom]

i'm afraid to ask.  how much memory is in the machine?

- erik

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Chuck Foreman]

Hallo,

Vintage 1997....
The max...2x64 + on board 16.....=  144K
Can't it swap?


At 08:31 PM 9/17/2006, you wrote:
>i'm afraid to ask.  how much memory is in the machine?
>
>- erik

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Russ Cox]

> Vintage 1997....
> The max...2x64 + on board 16.....=  144K
> Can't it swap?

Not really, no.  But 128M (it may not recognize the 16)
should be fine.  You might try setting kernelpercent=20
in plan9.ini on a boot floppy.

(If you really meant 144K and not 144M,
then good luck getting the kernel into memory.  ;-)

Russ

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Chuck Foreman]

Russ,

Thanks for replying. Indeed it's 144 meg.. or 128 
if the onboard is not recognized.
My floppy image doesn't appear to have a plan9.ini file... "none found"
That's the last message before the °use dma..."

my boot looks like this...
24M memory: 11M kernel data, 12M user, 77M swap
kfs....version....time

init starting /bin/rc
/bin/dos/srv: serving #s/dos
rc (boota:) : null list in concatenation
rc (boota:) : null list in concatenation
cp: can't sta /n/a:/plan9.ini: 'n/a/plan9.ini doesn't exist'

I am in the textonly install and the problem occurs at the end as I try to
locate and mount the distribution archive.. shortly after 16%
" out of physical memory ...no swap configured...
Can I configure swap prior to this ...?




At 09:22 PM 9/17/2006, you wrote:
>>Vintage 1997....
>>The max...2x64 + on board 16.....=  144K
>>Can't it swap?
>
>Not really, no.  But 128M (it may not recognize the 16)
>should be fine.  You might try setting kernelpercent=20
>in plan9.ini on a boot floppy.
>
>(If you really meant 144K and not 144M,
>then good luck getting the kernel into memory.  ;-)
>
>Russ

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Russ Cox]

> my boot looks like this...
> 24M memory: 11M kernel data, 12M user, 77M swap
> kfs....version....time

This is the problem -- the kernel only detected 24M of memory.
Not sure why.

Russ

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[John Floren]

On 9/17/06, Russ Cox <rsc@swtch.com> wrote:
> > my boot looks like this...
> > 24M memory: 11M kernel data, 12M user, 77M swap
> > kfs....version....time
>
> This is the problem -- the kernel only detected 24M of memory.
> Not sure why.
>
> Russ
>

On a similar note, does the kernel automatically detect and use swap
space upon boot? I just went back and resized my fossil partition to
add swap (in case I managed to fill my memory somehow); do I need to
have a line in cpurc to turn on swap for that partition, or is it
automagic?
Thanks

John F.
-- 
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" -- Shakespeare, Henry VI

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[geoff]

It's not automatic; you need to add something like

	swap /dev/sdC0/swap

to cpurc or cpurc.local.  Others feel that there are serious bugs in
the swapping (paging) code but I've had good luck with it.

If you expect to swap regularly, you should keep any local file
systems on different disks from your swap space, or performance will
suffer badly when you swap.  It's also possible to swap to a file
server (e.g., `swap /n/other/swap') but you'll want to use switched
Ethernet if you do that.  If it's possible, it's almost certainly a
better idea to add more RAM to your machine.

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[John Floren]

On 9/17/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> It's not automatic; you need to add something like
>
>         swap /dev/sdC0/swap
>
> to cpurc or cpurc.local.  Others feel that there are serious bugs in
> the swapping (paging) code but I've had good luck with it.
>
> If you expect to swap regularly, you should keep any local file
> systems on different disks from your swap space, or performance will
> suffer badly when you swap.  It's also possible to swap to a file
> server (e.g., `swap /n/other/swap') but you'll want to use switched
> Ethernet if you do that.  If it's possible, it's almost certainly a
> better idea to add more RAM to your machine.
>

I already have a good deal of RAM (320 MB or so) in my machine, but if
I put much load on it I'm a bit concerned about running out. Thought
I'd ask.


John
-- 
"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers" -- Shakespeare, Henry VI

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[geoff]

320MB should be ample unless you are running venti or fossil
on that machine and allocate lots of memory to caches.
Plan 9 generally consumes much less memory than other systems.

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Bruce Ellis]

i've never had problems with swap.  my setup at the labs was diskless
"terminal" with lotsa ram and swap on /n/other.  it never failed, tho swap
was really only there to cope with extraordinary circumstances.

i have a similar setup in sydney tho "other" is local.

killing a random process is not a solution.  it's an egregious hack.

brucee

On 9/18/06, geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com <geoff@plan9.bell-labs.com> wrote:
> It's not automatic; you need to add something like
>
>        swap /dev/sdC0/swap
>
> to cpurc or cpurc.local.  Others feel that there are serious bugs in
> the swapping (paging) code but I've had good luck with it.
>
> If you expect to swap regularly, you should keep any local file
> systems on different disks from your swap space, or performance will
> suffer badly when you swap.  It's also possible to swap to a file
> server (e.g., `swap /n/other/swap') but you'll want to use switched
> Ethernet if you do that.  If it's possible, it's almost certainly a
> better idea to add more RAM to your machine.
>

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[erik quanstrom]

let's face it.  there are some questions that are best left unasked.  buy
lots of memory, keep a swap partition and keep your fingers crossed
that you never need an answer to that question --- what do i do when
i run out of memory!

either that, or do like knuth.  we keep a fixed tablesize for everything.
we size these variables to the memory size of the machine, then we
will never run out of memory.  if you try to start one too many processes,
it will helpfully give an error message before you start. ;-)

- erik

On Sun Sep 17 16:11:27 CDT 2006, bruce.ellis@gmail.com wrote:
> i've never had problems with swap.  my setup at the labs was diskless
> "terminal" with lotsa ram and swap on /n/other.  it never failed, tho swap
> was really only there to cope with extraordinary circumstances.
> 
> i have a similar setup in sydney tho "other" is local.
> 
> killing a random process is not a solution.  it's an egregious hack.
> 
> brucee
> 

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Bruce Ellis]

fixed size is no option.  try building gs.

brucee

On 9/18/06, erik quanstrom <quanstro@quanstro.net> wrote:
> let's face it.  there are some questions that are best left unasked.  buy
> lots of memory, keep a swap partition and keep your fingers crossed
> that you never need an answer to that question --- what do i do when
> i run out of memory!
>
> either that, or do like knuth.  we keep a fixed tablesize for everything.
> we size these variables to the memory size of the machine, then we
> will never run out of memory.  if you try to start one too many processes,
> it will helpfully give an error message before you start. ;-)
>
> - erik
>
> On Sun Sep 17 16:11:27 CDT 2006, bruce.ellis@gmail.com wrote:
> > i've never had problems with swap.  my setup at the labs was diskless
> > "terminal" with lotsa ram and swap on /n/other.  it never failed, tho swap
> > was really only there to cope with extraordinary circumstances.
> >
> > i have a similar setup in sydney tho "other" is local.
> >
> > killing a random process is not a solution.  it's an egregious hack.
> >
> > brucee
> >
>

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[erik quanstrom]

isn't it a bit tenuous bolstering your argument with ghostscript? :-)

- erik

On Sun Sep 17 16:22:51 CDT 2006, bruce.ellis@gmail.com wrote:
> fixed size is no option.  try building gs.
> 
> brucee

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[geoff]

Well, the general case is `cd /sys/src; mk all', but building gs cuts
directly to the pain and suffering.

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Chuck Foreman]

Russ,

I found the plan9.ini on the floppy and added the kernelpercent=20... 
it got up to 25% before
giving up!

I found a reference in the archives where another user speculated 
about this error!
What do you think of the workaround?


........from archives 2005 July......
The major installation problem was that the system was constantly
running out of physical memory during the distmount phase. After a
bunch of hunting and exploration, it looked like the kernel was only
reporting about 3k free pages of free physical memory, with about 16k
pages of swap (approx numbers).

I managed to get the plan9 partion 'preped' with a swap, so after
copying the swap utility from the plan9 boot image (9pccd.gz) to a
shared ext2 partition i was able to use it from the plan9 install image
(9pcflop.gz) and fire up the swap file so I could successfully perform
the install.

Everything went smoothly with the install after that and I'm now
booting plan9 from the harddrive using grub. :)

After this experience, I have a feeling that either there's a bug in my
comp's mainboard which causes problems with the physical memory
calculation or (since I don't know much about the kernel yet) it has a
hardcoded max somewhere that is limiting my available memory. Any
comments on this problem or suggestions on how to fix it?

And finally, I would suggest to the iso maintainers that they put the
swap utility in the 9pcflop.gz image and some instructions in the
installation/installer to enable the swap file when it's created so
others don't have this kind of problem.


At 10:33 PM 9/17/2006, you wrote:
>>my boot looks like this...
>>24M memory: 11M kernel data, 12M user, 77M swap
>>kfs....version....time
>
>This is the problem -- the kernel only detected 24M of memory.
>Not sure why.
>
>Russ

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Burton Samograd]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2304 bytes --]

> I found the plan9.ini on the floppy and added the kernelpercent=20...
> it got up to 25% before
> giving up!

> I found a reference in the archives where another user speculated
> about this error!
> What do you think of the workaround?

I've been chatting with Chuck offlist and it seems the he has the same
problem I had with the Compaq physical memory layout and the memory probing
code that's found in the kernel.  Although the machine has 128M, the kernel
can only find 16M and runs out during the install.  It can't seem to boot
from CD, but works fine from the floppy...unfortunately the swap program
isn't installed on the floppy (but is on the CD), so I had to figure out a
workaround to enable swap to perofrm the install.

Basically, I copied the swap program from the plan9 install cd to an ext2
partition on the same machine, booted from the floppy, mounted the partition
and ran swap from there, which then allowed the install to happen smoothly.
This was after the first out of memory failure during the initial install,
but the install partition had already been prepared so you could just enable
the swap created during that initial failed install to allow for the second
install to work (simple isn't it ;-)

I played with the memory probing code and I *think* I might have gotten all
my memory recognized by raising the upper address limit that the probe
routine went to.  This was a while back, but I did run plan9 exclusively as
my only OS on that machine for about 3 months, and I do remember solving a
number of problems (but unforunately didn't have much net access so I
couldn't write about them at the time).

I put a little bit of a request during my solution (the reference that Chuck
posted) to put the swap program on the install floppy (if space permits),
but I guess that was missed.  Maybe this could be a second request so this
workaround doesn't have to confuse new users.

If I recall there was also a problem with the card not having a listing in
vgadb; unfortunately that laptop has since gone to pasture so I can't even
attempt to recall what that was.

Once everything was working, it ran plan9 just great thought :D

-- 
burton samograd aka kruhft
http://www.myspace.com/kruhft
http://kruhft.boldlygoingnowhere.org

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Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Chuck Foreman]

Hi,

I'm going to try this swap enabler thing! Can somebody tell me where 
the "swap" program is
and the correct syntax. I suspect I either have to add it to the 
floppy or put it in a mountable/
executable place as proposed by Burton.
Once booted from the floppy ...could I remove the floppy and mount 
the CD.-ROM in its place?
I'll also be playing with the installer to see if I can't trick the 
graphics to work...

Any other tips ie  memory probing code ... etc would be helpful.

Thanks for all the feedback!!

Feeling a bit frustrated...



At 05:34 AM 9/18/2006, you wrote:
> > I found the plan9.ini on the floppy and added the kernelpercent=20...
> > it got up to 25% before
> > giving up!
>
> > I found a reference in the archives where another user speculated
> > about this error!
> > What do you think of the workaround?
>
>I've been chatting with Chuck offlist and it seems the he has the 
>same problem I had with the Compaq physical memory layout and the 
>memory probing code that's found in the kernel.  Although the 
>machine has 128M, the kernel can only find 16M and runs out during 
>the install.  It can't seem to boot from CD, but works fine from the 
>floppy...unfortunately the swap program isn't installed on the 
>floppy (but is on the CD), so I had to figure out a workaround to 
>enable swap to perofrm the install.
>
>Basically, I copied the swap program from the plan9 install cd to an 
>ext2 partition on the same machine, booted from the floppy, mounted 
>the partition and ran swap from there, which then allowed the 
>install to happen smoothly.  This was after the first out of memory 
>failure during the initial install, but the install partition had 
>already been prepared so you could just enable the swap created 
>during that initial failed install to allow for the second install 
>to work (simple isn't it ;-)
>
>I played with the memory probing code and I *think* I might have 
>gotten all my memory recognized by raising the upper address limit 
>that the probe routine went to.  This was a while back, but I did 
>run plan9 exclusively as my only OS on that machine for about 3 
>months, and I do remember solving a number of problems (but 
>unforunately didn't have much net access so I couldn't write about 
>them at the time).
>
>I put a little bit of a request during my solution (the reference 
>that Chuck posted) to put the swap program on the install floppy (if 
>space permits), but I guess that was missed.  Maybe this could be a 
>second request so this workaround doesn't have to confuse new users.
>
>If I recall there was also a problem with the card not having a 
>listing in vgadb; unfortunately that laptop has since gone to 
>pasture so I can't even attempt to recall what that was.
>
>Once everything was working, it ran plan9 just great thought :D
>
>--
>burton samograd aka kruhft
><http://www.myspace.com/kruhft>http://www.myspace.com/kruhft
>http://kruhft.boldlygoingnowhere.org

Re: [9fans] install "out of physical memory"

[Chuck Foreman]

oops in that flashback I meant megs not K

Hallo,

Vintage 1997....
The max...2x64 + on board 16.....=  144MB
Can't it swap?


At 08:31 PM 9/17/2006, you wrote:
>i'm afraid to ask.  how much memory is in the machine?
>
>- erik