linux-kernel - Re: [x86_32] With 4GB installed, in which cases low mem total is less than 896MB?

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Message-Id: <200805080948.19914.fabiomdf@alice.it>
Date:	Thu, 8 May 2008 09:48:17 +0200
From:	Fabio De Francesco <fabiomdf@...ce.it>
To:	Rene Herman <rene.herman@...access.nl>
Cc:	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [x86_32] With 4GB installed, in which cases low mem total is less than 896MB?

On Sunday 04 May 2008 16:37:08 you wrote:
>On 30-04-08 17:02, Fabio De Francesco wrote:
>
>> I've got a Linux box, Intel Core 2 T7700 with 4GB RAM installed, with
>> vanilla kernel 2.6.24 + TuxOnIce patch-set compiled for x86_32bit
>> (CONFIG_X86_32=y), whose /proc/meminfo shows "LowTotal 794MB".
>> 
>> I've always known that, in this specific platform, Linux permanently maps
>> 896MB as "Low Memory" into its linear address space (as this last value
>> is the one /proc/meminfo shows in the other two x86_32bit computers I
>> own).
>
>Others have already answered as well so this just as by the way and just in 
>case... why are you running a 32-bit kernel on it?
>
>Rene.
>

Hello Rene,

It's only because when I got the box I had to make it run as soon as possible, sooner than I'd had time to investigate which possible benefits I would have had from running a 64bit distribution.

Further, since I had to install a Gentoo GNU/Linux distribution by "emerging" from a chroot(-ed) environment inside an Ubuntu 32bit one (it takes too long to explain why), I supposed I couldn't do that for installing a 64bit Gentoo. Still today I don't know whether or not I assumed that wrongly.

Today I would switch to a 64bit Gentoo but, first I don't know how to do that in a secure and fast way, second I still don't know if it is worth the job... 

Could you please summarize which benefits I would gain from that?

-- 

Best Regards,

fabio de francesco
metanix.org

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