Re: PAE causing failure to run various executables.

[avi <avi@argo.co.il>]

Dave Jones wrote:

>A fedora user recently filed a puzzling bug at
>https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=169741
>
>The system being reported has exactly 4GB, and its E820
>tables seem to concur that there is in fact 4GB.
>
>When run in non-PAE mode, it triggers the
>"Warning only 4GB will be used. Use a PAE enabled kernel."
>message, which is odd, but the system does actually run.
>
>  
>
if there's a hole in the physical address space (for pci devices), you 
would need more than 32 bits to address 4GB RAM.

>When run in PAE mode, it seems to lose its mind, and it
>fails to run various binaries.
>
>Booting with mem=4G causes the machine to boot fine
>(though for some reason, it finds only 3042M of RAM).
>
>  
>
looks like a 1GB hole.


>The reporter of this bug has tested on 2.6.14-rc3-git4, and found the
>same issue exists as he saw on the original FC3 kernel, thus ruling out
>any Fedora-specific patches.
>
>Anyone have any ideas what's wrong here?
>
>		
>
maybe the last 1GB is bad. since it can only be accessed by pae, only 
the pae kernel fails.

-- 
Do not meddle in the internals of kernels, for they are subtle and quick to panic.