Linux does not "round down" memory size to multiple of 4M. Instead, Linux rounds down to a full page (4k). You can see how much memory Linux uses by looking at the output of dmesg: Memory 498036k/500468k available (1984k kernel code, 0k reserved, 396k data, 52k init) The important number is the second one: this represents the _total_ amount of memory available to Linux.
mit freundlichem Gru� / with kind regards
Carsten Otte
--
IBM Deutschland Entwicklung GmbH
Linux kernel coder
Phone: +49 7031 16 4076
Tie Line: (*120) 4076
Rob van der Heij
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent by: Linux on cc:
390 Port Subject: Re: Minimum memory size for
zSeries Linux
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]
IST.EDU>
06/25/03 08:12 AM
Please respond to
Linux on 390 Port
> I did get the SuSE SLES 8, SP2 up at 12MB - Linux saw 8424 KB, so about
4M
> was LPAR overhead. And yes, it was slow during boot and trying to enter
> commands. But the swap size was 3044 KB, so it had to be doing a lot of
> swapping!
If you're really talking about a 12 MB LPAR, then I suspect that HSA takes
off a
few bytes at the top and Linux then rounds memory size down to multiple of
4M.
The memory that you see reported in 'free' is without the kernel, static
data areas
and the table that describes memory (this is why that 'overhead' increases
with
memory size). In my 128 MB virtual machine Linux hides some 7 MB, and in a
64 MB machine slightly more than 4 MB.
