Ubuntu
flash-kernel package

dove kernel requires mem=512M to use all available memory

Bug #435151 reported by Michael Casadevall
10
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Ubuntu CD Images
Fix Released
Low
Loïc Minier
flash-kernel (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Loïc Minier
Ubuntu ubuntu-9.10
Karmic
Fix Released
Low
Loïc Minier
Ubuntu ubuntu-9.10

Bug Description

As of 2.6.31-204-dove, dove kernels currently require mem=512M to use the full memory on the board. Memory autodetection on the dove seems to only see the first 284M of RAM. Here's the /proc/meminfo with no mem= option set

mcasadevall@twilight:~$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 284276 kB
MemFree: 24836 kB
Buffers: 24564 kB
Cached: 119900 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 130572 kB
Inactive: 90888 kB
Active(anon): 101928 kB
Inactive(anon): 0 kB
Active(file): 28644 kB
Inactive(file): 90888 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 1494004 kB
SwapFree: 1494004 kB
Dirty: 52 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 77020 kB
Mapped: 30728 kB
Slab: 14756 kB
SReclaimable: 5300 kB
SUnreclaim: 9456 kB
PageTables: 1544 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 1636140 kB
Committed_AS: 328892 kB
VmallocTotal: 704512 kB
VmallocUsed: 101888 kB
VmallocChunk: 598012 kB

With mem=512M
cat /pr mcasadevall@twilight:~$ cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 510740 kB
MemFree: 247344 kB
Buffers: 24176 kB
Cached: 122160 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 133124 kB
Inactive: 91064 kB
Active(anon): 104368 kB
Inactive(anon): 0 kB
Active(file): 28756 kB
Inactive(file): 91064 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 1494004 kB
SwapFree: 1494004 kB
Dirty: 40 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 77876 kB
Mapped: 31956 kB
Slab: 14844 kB
SReclaimable: 5368 kB
SUnreclaim: 9476 kB
PageTables: 1556 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 1749372 kB
Committed_AS: 361216 kB
VmallocTotal: 475136 kB
VmallocUsed: 101888 kB
VmallocChunk: 368636 kB

Tags: armel
Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall)
Changed in linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → High
milestone: none → ubuntu-9.10-beta
tags: added: armel
Loïc Minier (lool)
Changed in linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu):
importance: High → Low
milestone: ubuntu-9.10-beta → none
Revision history for this message
Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall) wrote :

Bumping the priority to medium as we now have Dove Y1 boards which have 1GiB of RAM, and are being limited to 512MiB due to the command line arguments.

Changed in linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu):
importance: Low → Medium
milestone: none → karmic-updates
Loïc Minier (lool)
Changed in linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu Karmic):
importance: Medium → Low
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Loïc Minier (lool) wrote :

18:17 <maen> for the memory bug, I am not totally understand the report
18:17 <maen> what exactly are you seeing?
18:17 <lool> Currently we pass mem=512m to all kernels
18:17 <lool> We would like to drop that and let the kernel figure out how much
             mem there is
18:18 <lool> We used to be told this was required on Z0 (and/or Y0)
18:18 <maen> you should not pass mem=512m
18:18 <maen> Kernel will know about memory from U-Boot
18:18 <lool> Is this working on all Y0s / Y1s with latest uboot?
18:19 <maen> Yes
18:19 <lool> Cool, thanks

Let's drop mem=512m

Changed in linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu Karmic):
assignee: nobody → Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall)
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Paul Larson (pwlars) wrote :

/proc/meminfo from my Y1 without mem= set

MemTotal: 858124 kB
MemFree: 689604 kB
Buffers: 18908 kB
Cached: 61356 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 73456 kB
Inactive: 56020 kB
Active(anon): 50792 kB
Inactive(anon): 0 kB
Active(file): 22664 kB
Inactive(file): 56020 kB
Unevictable: 0 kB
Mlocked: 0 kB
SwapTotal: 1494004 kB
SwapFree: 1494004 kB
Dirty: 0 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 49236 kB
Mapped: 25544 kB
Slab: 14240 kB
SReclaimable: 4564 kB
SUnreclaim: 9676 kB
PageTables: 1348 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
WritebackTmp: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 1923064 kB
Committed_AS: 207096 kB
VmallocTotal: 122880 kB
VmallocUsed: 1024 kB
VmallocChunk: 116516 kB

Revision history for this message
Loïc Minier (lool) wrote :

Isn't actually a kernel issue; we don't need the mem= anymore.

affects: linux-mvl-dove (Ubuntu Karmic) → flash-kernel (Ubuntu Karmic)
Changed in ubuntu-cdimage:
assignee: nobody → Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall)
importance: Undecided → Low
status: New → Triaged
Changed in flash-kernel (Ubuntu Karmic):
milestone: karmic-updates → ubuntu-9.10
Revision history for this message
Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall) wrote :

proposed changes attached

Revision history for this message
Loïc Minier (lool) wrote :

(I didn't merge the proposed branch since it added a new feature in the same commit and this wasn't documented nor was the implementation of the feature what I had in mind. I simply redid the "drop mem=" change myself.)

Changed in flash-kernel (Ubuntu Karmic):
status: Triaged → Fix Committed
assignee: Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall) → Loïc Minier (lool)
Loïc Minier (lool)
Changed in ubuntu-cdimage:
status: Triaged → Fix Released
assignee: Michael Casadevall (mcasadevall) → Loïc Minier (lool)
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

This bug was fixed in the package flash-kernel - 2.13ubuntu13

---------------
flash-kernel (2.13ubuntu13) karmic; urgency=low

  * Drop hardcoded mem= arg on Dove; LP: #435151.

 -- Loic Minier <email address hidden> Mon, 19 Oct 2009 14:42:52 +0200

Changed in flash-kernel (Ubuntu Karmic):
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.
Subscribing...

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.