From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: kanoj@google.engr.sgi.com (Kanoj Sarcar) Message-Id: <199909232109.OAA13866@google.engr.sgi.com> Subject: syslinux-1.43 bug [and possible PATCH] Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 14:09:58 -0700 (PDT) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-linux-mm@kvack.org Return-Path: To: syslinux@linux.kernel.org, linux-mm@kvack.org, linux-kernel@vger.rutgers.edu Cc: Kanoj Sarcar List-ID: I have a possible problem to report with syslinux, and a suggested fix. Please send me comments and feedback at kanoj@engr.sgi.com, since I am not subscribed to the syslinux or kernel lists. While installing linux (RedHat6.0, SuSe, Mandrake etc) on a ia32 Compaq box with 1.5Gb memory, I have observed kernel panics from mount_root. On further investigation, syslinux decides to put initrd at a high physical address, which the Linux kernel, compiled with PAGE_OFFSET=0xc0000000 can not access. The kernel can access at the most physical address 0x3c000000, whereas syslinux/ldlinux.asm can put initrd as high as HIGHMEM_MAX=0x3f000000. This leads setup_arch() to decide it can not use initrd, thus causing the kernel panic. The easy fix to me seems to be to change HIGHMEM_MAX in syslinux/ldlinux.asm to 0x3c000000. In fact, I have verified on a couple of machines that this will let the installation proceed. Have other people run into this problem and worked around it some other way? (One way would be to specify mem= at the boot: prompt from syslinux. Yet another way seems to be to specify mem= in the syslinux.cfg file. Changing HIGHMEM_MAX seems to be the cleanest, although I am not sure whether this will impact the capability of syslinux to install other os'es). Thanks. Kanoj kanoj@engr.sgi.com -- To unsubscribe, send a message with 'unsubscribe linux-mm' in the body to majordomo@kvack.org. For more info on Linux MM, see: http://humbolt.geo.uu.nl/Linux-MM/