Insufficient Memory...

[tb75252]

Using PartedMagic 6.1 on a 32-bit desktop.

Upon choosing any of the options presented by the PartedMagic initial screen, I keep on getting an error message stating that my system has insufficient memory. This also happens when I select the Live With Low RAM Settings option.

My desktop PC is indeed old (about 11 years) but it has the maximum allowed of 1.5 GB of memory. If I am not mistaken that should be plenty for PartedMagic! I ran a memory test and no problems were detected.
My motherboard is a Tyan Trinity 400 (S1854). My processor is a Pentium III (1100 MHz). My HD has 80 GB. Please let me know if you need more hardware information.

Any help would be appreciated.

[burdi01]

Dear tb75252,
For as far as I am aware PM does no memory check for the Live and Live with low RAM boot options. So what exact message do you see? If possible a screenshot (photo) would be nice.
Regards, Dick

[tb75252]

Dear tb75252,
For as far as I am aware PM does no memory check for the Live and Live with low RAM boot options. So what exact message do you see? If possible a screenshot (photo) would be nice.
Regards, Dick

Thanks for your reply.
At the Parted Magic screen if for instance I select option 1, Default Settings (Runs From RAM), it tries to load /pcmagic/initramfs but then I get a "Not enough memory to load specified image".

This same thing happens when I select option 2, Live With Default Settings, option 3, Live With Low RAM Settings, and 4, Alternate Graphical Server.

The DVD that I am using appears to be ok because I can run all the options on a different desktop machine.

[Patrick Verner]

Can you go into the failsafe menu and select "initramfs shell" and then give us the out put of

cat /proc/meminfo

?

[tb75252]

Can you go into the failsafe menu and select "initramfs shell" and then give us the out put of

cat /proc/meminfo

?

Went into Failsafe Menu and selected option G, Initramfs (Boot to initramfs Shell). This is what I get after selecting it:
Loading /pcmagic/bzImage.....
Loading /pcmagic/initramfs..............
Not enough memory to load specified image.
boot:

If I enter cat /proc/meminfo at the line where it says boot:, I get Could not find kernel image: cat.

I never have a chance to reach a real command line and enter cat /proc/meminfo.

[burdi01]

Dear tb75252,
As I already thought: the problem does not occur within PM, but before that. Syslinux, the bootloader, is loading PM and for one reason or another thinks that there is not enough memory to do so.
It might be interesting to verify whether Tiny Core or even Micro Core, the smallest Linux distributions I know of, can be loaded, and if so, to do this "cat /proc/meminfo" there.
Regards, Dick

You can download Tiny/Micro Core from http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html.

[tb75252]

Dear tb75252,
As I already thought: the problem does not occur within PM, but before that. Syslinux, the bootloader, is loading PM and for one reason or another thinks that there is not enough memory to do so.
It might be interesting to verify whether Tiny Core or even Micro Core, the smallest Linux distributions I know of, can be loaded, and if so, to do this "cat /proc/meminfo" there.
Regards, Dick

You can download Tiny/Micro Core from http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/downloads.html.

I just went ahead and installed on the hard drive Ubuntu 11.04, 32-bit, without a problem whatsoever. (The desktop environment is Ubuntu Standard, not the new Unity) I also was able to run their LiveCD version without any error messages about insufficient memory. In my opinion there is some sort of conflict between my computer and Parted Magic 6.1. (My computer is eleven years old...)

In any case, here is the output of "cat /proc/meminfo":

Code: Select all

MemTotal:        1541824 kB
MemFree:         1006144 kB
Buffers:           38704 kB
Cached:           209364 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:           297688 kB
Inactive:         188612 kB
Active(anon):     238964 kB
Inactive(anon):     2676 kB
Active(file):      58724 kB
Inactive(file):   185936 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
HighTotal:        663496 kB
HighFree:         201472 kB
LowTotal:         878328 kB
LowFree:          804672 kB
SwapTotal:       1951740 kB
SwapFree:        1951740 kB
Dirty:               368 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:        238244 kB
Mapped:            74212 kB
Shmem:              3412 kB
Slab:              18976 kB
SReclaimable:      10696 kB
SUnreclaim:         8280 kB
KernelStack:        2232 kB
PageTables:         4916 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     2722652 kB
Committed_AS:    1355500 kB
VmallocTotal:     122880 kB
VmallocUsed:       52224 kB
VmallocChunk:      62460 kB
HardwareCorrupted:     0 kB
HugePages_Total:       0
HugePages_Free:        0
HugePages_Rsvd:        0
HugePages_Surp:        0
Hugepagesize:       4096 kB
DirectMap4k:       40952 kB
DirectMap4M:      868352 kB


[burdi01]

Dear tb75252,
Once again: The problem occurs in syslinux, that is before PM is even loaded.
For as far as I can see Ubuntu Live uses grub, not iso/syslinux.
Tiny Core Linux does use iso/syslinux, that is why I asked you to test with that one.
Regards, Dick

PS: I do understand that for a user the distinction between syslinux and PM proper is not relevant - the end effect is the same - but for us developers the distinction does matter.

[tb75252]

Dear tb75252,
Once again: The problem occurs in syslinux, that is before PM is even loaded.
For as far as I can see Ubuntu Live uses grub, not iso/syslinux.
Tiny Core Linux does use iso/syslinux, that is why I asked you to test with that one.
Regards, Dick

PS: I do understand that for a user the distinction between syslinux and PM proper is not relevant - the end effect is the same - but for us developers the distinction does matter.

This is the output of "cat /proc/meminfo" using Tinycore:

Code: Select all

MemTotal:        1553812 kB
MemFree:         1507292 kB
Buffers:               8 kB
Cached:            17056 kB
SwapCached:            0 kB
Active:            28268 kB
Inactive:             20 kB
Active(anon):      28264 kB
Inactive(anon):        0 kB
Active(file):          4 kB
Inactive(file):       20 kB
Unevictable:           0 kB
Mlocked:               0 kB
HighTotal:        663496 kB
HighFree:         632772 kB
LowTotal:         890316 kB
LowFree:          874520 kB
SwapTotal:       2340180 kB
SwapFree:        2340180 kB
Dirty:                 0 kB
Writeback:             0 kB
AnonPages:         11208 kB
Mapped:             3712 kB
Shmem:             17056 kB
Slab:              12100 kB
SReclaimable:       1388 kB
SUnreclaim:        10712 kB
KernelStack:         304 kB
PageTables:          700 kB
NFS_Unstable:          0 kB
Bounce:                0 kB
WritebackTmp:          0 kB
CommitLimit:     3117084 kB
Committed_AS:      31344 kB
VmallocTotal:     122880 kB
VmallocUsed:        1632 kB
VmallocChunk:     120576 kB
DirectMap4k:        8184 kB
DirectMap4M:      901120 kB

[Icecube]

It might be possible that your PC has a memory hole.
Loading the kernel and initramfs with linux.c32 might help.
linux.c32 is written in C and is smarter than the linux loader in the Syslinux core.
In Syslinux 5.xx, the smart linux loader will be in the core.

Code: Select all

LABEL pmagic_linux_c32
MENU LABEL Parted Magic loaded with linux.c32
COM32 linux.c32
APPEND /pmagic/bzImage initrd=/pmagic/initramfs kernel parameters

@ burdi01
Maybe you can prepare a test image.