Can 32-bit Puppy use >3 GB of RAM? (Yes, with PAE)

What features/apps/bugfixes needed in a future Puppy
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Flash
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#21 Post by Flash »

p310don, I think Puppy already has that highmem thing enabled. 32-bit Puppy can see more than a GB of RAM, it just can't see more than about 3.3 GB. Neither can 32-bit Windows. Theoretically, both should be able to directly address 2^32 memory locations of RAM, which is more than 4 GB. The BIOS shows the correct amount of RAM when the computer starts, so it's not a hardware problem.

gcmartin

2 issues - FS and OS

#22 Post by gcmartin »

There are 2 issues at play here (really more) for 32ibit OS. File System (FS) and Operating System (OS) that run on a hard disk drive (HDD)

Lets talk about the easy one first - FS
FS (and they are all different) are build to address how Hard drives are used. Further, they are built with some understanding of what files will be used within them. Thus, FAT/EXT was built in 1984 with a particular mission in mind, while HPFS/NTFS/EXT2 came along with expanded missions. Following these came additionals EXT3/EXT4/ReiserFS that Linux also makes use of.

There is a FILE System size limitation AND a filesize limitation with EACH OF THESE!

So when building your LInux OS (Puppies, for example) YOU must decide which of these YOU will build on your PCs hard drive. In Linux, most uses are setup from PARTED/GPARTED for those that you build on a HDD.

Puppy offers us one more thing that I have ONLY used in Puppyland....Livecd-LiveDVD. This allows the LiveCD to set itself up in such a way as it runs totally in the system's memory (RAM).

And, since my Puppy use began, I have always delpoyed it on RAM PCs that had 512MB+. I have also done this with success in Microsoft and in IBM's OS2, that is, run so that everything the OS needs to present everything you want is running totally from your system's RAM, not the HDD.

How it does this is simple. When booting, looks to see how much RAM you have, then map that RAM as if it were a HDD, install the complete FS for the OS, then give the OS control where the OS thinks it is on a real HDD. In the case of this thread, you OS got loaded on an FS built in your 3.1GB of RAM.

To see how much you are using, go to Menu>System>Hardinfo and look at the Summary page. From Puppy's "point-of-view" it is running on a 3.1GB HDD. He will operate, on any files you want, exactly as if on a real HDD..

Simple to understand, right.

The OS is a different story,
It has "drivers", so to speak, that will do I/O for whatever FS it is capable of talking to. This begins a different venture because most of today's 32bit OSs It is called 32bit because that is the size of a chunk of data that it operates on whenever it does ANY TASK FOR YOU. Reading and writing data (I/O) is a task and the OS is limited by the PCs architecture. Couple this with the ARCHITECTURE of the FS and you will find how the file and the filesystem manifest themselves.

32bit Puppy, from LIveCD, runnig in RAM, on any PC respects those FS architectures. Further, all Puppies (as far as I know) are designed to run on 32bit Architectures with 64MB-128MB of RAM. The fact that you have more is good for you can use the extra memory for added functionality that you can employ in that extra space if you so choose.

Again, Simple to understand, right.

My use of DOGS from the Puppy community
I have found my LiveCD-LiveDVD environments to be very advantageous.

And, I also have been using the 64bit FATDOG (a different specie of Puppy, think of it as an "evolved" Puppy) in LiveDVD mode very stably on a 4MB and 8MB systems. Stable and responsively with SAMBA 3.5.6. This makes FATDOG do 99% of what you get from VISTA/XP. These 64bit PCs share files securely from its RAM with other PCs on my LAN same as my XP/Vista PCs do. A very good combination for me.

The OS itself (Linux/Microsoft/Unix/Mainframe) are constrained ONLY by the bit type of the CPU in th machine; either 32bit or 64bit, today. And ALL OS functions, tools, services MUST be built/compiled to take advantage of which of these 2 PCs it will run on so that it can take advantage of their advantages. So, its obvious (I think) that a 64bit OS can handle much-much larger programs than the same 32bit PC is capable of. In the labs from the user's perspective we have found that a 64bit system can run just as fast with much more stability and much more functionality than we ever could with 16/32bit PC. The programmer now can apply more checks and balances without sacrificing performance with their programs when they are on 64bit architecturess than they ever could on 32bit architectures.

To date, I have never installed a DOG on any HDD that I have...ever! The Multi-session LiveDVD allows me to do everything I need in the world of Puppy distros .

FINALLY
ALL Puppy incarnations, as far as I know, will use any available memory when running is a RAM based system for files and filesystem use. On the other hand, the OS is limited in how many programs it can load within an 32bit Address-space. It has much more room on 64bit Architectures.

Simple, huh?

Hope this helps
Last edited by gcmartin on Thu 17 Mar 2011, 02:17, edited 1 time in total.

p310don
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#23 Post by p310don »

gcmartin - I think you just melted my brain. I'll re-read that after breakfast and caffeine and get back to you.... :D

gcmartin

Summarize

#24 Post by gcmartin »

p310don wrote:gcmartin - I think you just melted my brain. I'll re-read that after breakfast and caffeine and get back to you.... :D
Sorry, I had no intention of confusing or talking at a high level. I apologize.

Let me summarize; "ALL PUPs use 3.1GB of RAM when booted pfix=ram on LiveCD."

p310don
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#25 Post by p310don »

gcmartin - Thanks for the summary, I have re-read your mini-novel a couple of times, and am still confused. You say all pups use 3.1gig. I know that. That's my point. Is there a way around it to make 4 gig, or greater, usable in a 32bit environment. And of course, is it worth it?

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Karl Godt
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#26 Post by Karl Godt »

I just want to post, that
CONFIG_HIGHMEM64G=y

is only possible if you choose any other architecture than i386 and i486 .

Even if you choose Pentium_II or Pentium_Pro you can choose 64G . :roll:

gcmartin

What's in your wallet

#27 Post by gcmartin »

Go to Menu > System and click Hardinfo

On the left side click Summary
On the right side what do you see? I see

Code: Select all

-Computer-
Processor		: 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
Memory		: 4054MB (2208MB used)
Operating System		: Puppy Linux 0.50
User Name		: root (root)
Date/Time		: Thu 17 Mar 2011 02:03:49 PM GMT+5
-Display- ....
On the left side click Filesystems
On the right side what do you see? I see

Code: Select all

-Mounted File Systems-
rootfs		: 3.9 GiB total, 2.6 GiB free
tmpfs		: 3.9 GiB total, 2.6 GiB free
tmpfs		: 1.9 GiB total, 1.5 GiB free
tmpfs		: 183.7 MiB total, 1.6 MiB free
/dev/loop0		: 181.8 MiB total, 0.0 B free
unionfs		: 3.9 GiB total, 2.6 GiB free
....
This system has SM with 19 sites active and 1 streaming radio site, AND, I have a FF also running with 9 sites open, AND, I have 6 Abiword documents open, AND, 4 Geany txt files open, AND, 3 different Terminals all running right now. Further, I have downloaded over 1.2GB of files in last 48 hours all running in this LiveDVD 4GB RAM PUP.

What do you see?

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Flash
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#28 Post by Flash »

Here's what I see, in a computer with 4 GB of RAM but no hard disk, running Puppy from a multisession DVD.

By the way, how did you copy the output of hardinfo into your post?
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James C
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#29 Post by James C »

Flash wrote: By the way, how did you copy the output of hardinfo into your post?
I click "copy to clipboard", then open the clipboard and copy and paste whatever into the post.
HTH.

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Flash
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#30 Post by Flash »

Thanks. I never tried to copy anything from that window before. :)

p310don
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#31 Post by p310don »

I see this

Computer
Processor 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+
Memory 3115MB (208MB used)
Operating System Puppy Linux 0.52
User Name root (root)
Date/Time Fri 18 Mar 2011 11:33:26 EST

I am not running as pfix=ram as you are (?) but I did try it as such, and get the same ram figure. The filesystem shows my save file, as opposed to my memory size.

gcmartin

Problem with RAM use on a 4GB system

#32 Post by gcmartin »

p310don wrote:I see this

Computer
Processor 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5600+
Memory 3115MB (208MB used)
Operating System Puppy Linux 0.52
User Name root (root)
Date/Time Fri 18 Mar 2011 11:33:26 EST

I am not running as pfix=ram as you are (?) but I did try it as such, and get the same ram figure. The filesystem shows my save file, as opposed to my memory size.
You did NOT post your filesystem report for some reason.
Observation: You may want to download and run FATDOG on your platform to see results that you obtain. I get different results when using FATDOG....but that is 64bit versus 'your call for 32bit".

Check this: Do you have a SWAP partition or are you running a swap file that resides in your system's file system? We can't help you if you don't share enough information that we can use to pin-point your problem.
Flash wrote:Here's what I see, in a computer with 4 GB of RAM but no hard disk, running Puppy from a multisession DVD.
...
You peaked my interest, so I shutdown and booted WARY. Here's what I got so, maybe, there is a bug (but, certainly, this needs more investigation.).

Heres my report which should match what you have. I am running latest WARY LiveDVD on same system which has a SWAP partition on the local HDD. I am missing storage, same as you.

Code: Select all

-Computer-
Processor		: 2x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4600+
Memory		: 3634MB (135MB used)
Operating System		: Puppy Linux 0.50
User Name		: root (root)
Date/Time		: Thu 17 Mar 2011 11:04:07 PM UTC
and

Code: Select all

-Mounted File Systems-
rootfs	/	0.28 % (3.7 GiB of 3.8 GiB)	
tmpfs	/initrd/pup_rw	0.28 % (3.7 GiB of 3.8 GiB)	
tmpfs	/initrd/mnt/tmpfs	99.09 % (900.0 KiB of 96.4 MiB)	
/dev/loop0	/initrd/pup_ro2	100.00 % (0.0 B of 95.5 MiB)	
unionfs	/	0.28 % (3.7 GiB of 3.8 GiB)	
shmfs	/dev/shm	0.00 % (859.1 MiB of 859.1 MiB)

Code: Select all

# df -l
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
tmpfs                  3933876     10972   3922904   1% /initrd/pup_rw
tmpfs                    98704     97804       900 100% /initrd/mnt/tmpfs
/dev/loop0               97792     97792         0 100% /initrd/pup_ro2
unionfs                3933876     10972   3922904   1% /
shmfs                   879764         0    879764   0% /dev/shm

Code: Select all

# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000b935d

   Device Boot      Start         End      Blocks   Id  System
/dev/sda1           59918       60801     7100730    5  Extended
/dev/sda2               1        6374    51199123+  83  Linux
/dev/sda5           60275       60801     4233127+  82  Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order
I'm going to report this as a potential bug.

Hope this helps

gcmartin

Got the same results on other 32bit PUPs

#33 Post by gcmartin »

I got, virtually, the same results on following 32bit Pups:
  • Luci256
    MacPUP 520
    WARY5.1.1
    QuickSet-WARY 505q
    LightHouse 5.03G
Hope this helps
Last edited by gcmartin on Wed 23 Mar 2011, 05:55, edited 1 time in total.

scsijon
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#34 Post by scsijon »

1/ A part of the problem can be hardware chipsets, a lot of the 32bit chipsets used on motherboards have saved components by using some of the addressing matrixes for their internal device addressing.

2/ It hasn't been that long since the standard memory was stepped up from 256meg to 1gig and with 4 memory slots it was planned for 1 or 2gig (using alternate slots) just not 4gig. The possability of 4gig or even 16gig cards was in the address space for the memory socket, just not expected to be used by all motherboards.

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#35 Post by bigpup »

James C wrote:All 32 bit Linux kernels (without PAE enabled) are limited to using about 3.2 to 3.4 Gb of ram ........minus reserved ram for onboard graphics, etc. It's a kernel limitation that applies to all distros...not just Puppy.
As an example, I just booted Ubuntu 10.10 in a box with 4 Gb ram.... it only showed 2.7 Gb ram .....the 3.2 minus 512 Mb for the graphics equals the 2.7 Gb that shows.
The solution is a PAE enabled kernel or run a 64 bit version.

See here
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions ... ost3458590

gcmartin

PAE or 64bit seems to be the answer

#36 Post by gcmartin »

Thanks #BIGpup. 32bit PUPs do not support modern hardware like 64bit FATDOG does. That's why I am getting differing readings using differing PUPs vs FATDOG on the same system.

Request: If anyone is running a 32bit PUP on any PC that has 6GB/8GB, Please post your Hardinfo summary for a review. Thanks in advance.
Edited Today, at 4:15 pm EST - Don't bother to post on the "Request" I ask..
I just found out that this is an issue that BarryK or 32bit PUP system builders are going to have to address. It appears to be an oversight by them. Appears to have been an oversight for quite a while.

Thanks to @p310don for bringing this to the forum's attentions. Thanks again, BIGpup, for your expert help.

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Flash
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Re: PAE or 64bit seems to be the answer

#37 Post by Flash »

gcmartin wrote:Appears to have been an oversight for quite a while.

Thanks to @p310don for bringing this to the forum's attentions. Thanks again, BIGpup, for your expert help.
This is not the first time the question has come up in the forum. Perhaps a year or two ago there was a thread discussing why neither Linux nor Windows see more than about 3.3 GB of RAM.

If it's a bug in Linux, or at least in Puppy, then Windows seems to have it too.

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James C
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Re: PAE or 64bit seems to be the answer

#38 Post by James C »

Flash wrote:
gcmartin wrote:Appears to have been an oversight for quite a while.

Thanks to @p310don for bringing this to the forum's attentions. Thanks again, BIGpup, for your expert help.
This is not the first time the question has come up in the forum. Perhaps a year or two ago there was a thread discussing why neither Linux nor Windows see more than about 3.3 GB of RAM.

If it's a bug in Linux, or at least in Puppy, then Windows seems to have it too.
It's a 32 bit limitation, period. Windows and all 32 bit Linux distros without the PAE kernel will only show about 3.2 to 3.4 Gb of ram.I'm not going to get into all the physical memory addresses and virtual memory addresses stuff .......it's not a bug or oversight...it's just a reality.

p310don
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#39 Post by p310don »

To summarise, and try to bring things back on track - standart puppies DO NOT see more than 3.1ish gig of ram, because they are 32bit, NOT A BUG WITH PUPPY. This is a limitation as a result of being a 32bit operating system. Google it for further explanation.

The point of this thread isn't to imply a bug with puppy, but I was hoping that a puppy dev genius, might be able to address the issue with an ingeniously creative solution.

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Flash
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#40 Post by Flash »

All I can say is, 2^32 = nearly 4.3 GB.

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