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

["Burton Samograd" <kruhft.lists@gmail.com>]

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> 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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