Syslinux - Jan 2007 - memdisk, free memory

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Hi,

I am having trouble with memdisk not freeing all all memory - mem /c
shows only about 570K memory (and I happen to need that extra memory in
DOS ... :-( ).

I found some (rather old) information about this issue. It seems as if
this is just what is happening to me:

http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2003-June/002213.html
http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2003-June/002215.html
http://syslinux.zytor.com/archives/2003-July/002225.html
https://lists.sdsc.edu/pipermail/npaci-rocks-discussion/2003-June/002152.html

However, this does not seem to be limited to some PXE implementations: I
tried 7 different computers (HP, Compaq and Dell; 1-5 years old; 3
different network card vendors). The problem was always the same (with
the amount of memory missing differing from system to system).

This happened with both the current stable and the development version.
I also tried a 2.x version and 1.75 (which, according to one mail,
should work) - same results.

Are really all the PXE stacks broken?

Thanks,
Michael

- --
Michael Redinger
Zentraler Informatikdienst (Central IT Services)
Universitaet Innsbruck
Technikerstrasse 13                    Tel.: ++43 512 507 2335
6020 Innsbruck                         Fax.: ++43 512 507 949 02335
Austria                                Mail: Michael.Redinger at uibk.ac.at
BB98 D2FE 0F2C 2658 3780  3CB1 0FD7 A9D9 65C2 C11D
http://homepage.uibk.ac.at/~c102mr/mred-pubkey.asc
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Michael Redinger wrote:
> I am having trouble with memdisk not freeing all all memory - mem /c
> shows only about 570K memory (and I happen to need that extra memory in
> DOS ... :-( ).
>   
Feel free to list the complete MEM /C output (and config.sys and 
autoexec.bat contents) either in this list or for example the FreeDOS 
development list.
That way you can see if it's a PXE issue or not. When using MEMDISK on 
top of Isolinux, only 2KB of conventional RAM is eaten away.
The rest is eaten away by plain old DOS programs (kernel, shell, 
drivers) which can be optimised using old DOS tricks.

How much memory do you need in DOS, and does that include network access 
as well through MC Client?
Or are you just booting from network, then doing something on local 
machine instead? (get rid of the KEEPPXE statement then in pxelinux's 
config file).


hope this helps a little bit,

Bernd

Noticed that when you try to load an operating system using memdisk, the system
sees the total system memory minus what was loaded by memdisk....
   
  But when you boot off a microsoft ramdisk all the system memory is shown....
   
  Does this provide any insight into how one might boot a large ramdisk image
and successfully run xp or xpe?

 	
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