Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

I recently purchased a Dell Optiplex 7010 that has a peculiar problem
on a Fatdog remaster using a humungous initrd. When attempting
to run it, I get a error message saying the item doesn't fit in
memory. I don't get the error using the un-remastered Fatdog.
I don't get the error when using several other different computers.
All computers have 4g Ram. All run pups and FD using either
HD or SSD.

The 7010 has a impressive set of diagnostics built in. It passes
all tests. It has the latest (A29) Bios. It hasn't shown any other
problem. The Bios is set for legacy. No Windows installed.

There are some things I could try like temporarily removing the
CMOS battery. Actually, there have been a couple of Bios
updates of the A29 since the one I have was installed (weird)
but I'm not in the mood to take risks with a machine that
works quite well (if it works don't fix it

I'm posting just out of curiosity to see if anyone has any
thoughts on what may be causing the issue. I did extract
initrd and the extracted sfs is 1601 mb. Again, several
other 4g Ram computers handle the remaster just fine.

art

It's a long shot, but maybe this particular computer grabs more RAM for video card than the other ones?
According to its specs, it has no dedicated VRAM and can use up to 1.7G of system RAM.

Greetings!

JakeSFR wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 2:11 pm It's a long shot, but maybe this particular computer grabs more RAM for video card than the other ones?
According to its specs, it has no dedicated VRAM and can use up to 1.7G of system RAM.

Greetings!

Didn't know that but one of my own shots in the dark was to increase
Ram size from 4g to 8g. No help

art

Another shot: are you using the same bootloader on that Dell and on other boxes?
If not and if you're using Grub (3rd party, not the one provided by recent Fatdogs) on Dell, it might be the culprit, because unpatched Grub limits the size of initrd to max. ~462M.
We have Grub patched to remove that limit.

Anyway, maybe just try a different bootloader regardless and see what happens...

Greetings!

JakeSFR wrote: ↑Mon Sep 14, 2020 3:46 pm Another shot: are you using the same bootloader on that Dell and on other boxes?
If not and if you're using Grub (3rd party, not the one provided by recent Fatdogs) on Dell, it might be the culprit, because unpatched Grub limits the size of initrd to max. ~462M.
We have Grub patched to remove that limit.

Anyway, maybe just try a different bootloader regardless and see what happens...

Greetings!

I used my usual method of convenience which is a CD having bionicpup64. Then
under Setup - Grub4dos bootloader I get grldr size 213K dated Nov 2012.
I don't recall if all my machines were done in this way, but most likely they
were. And again, my other machines accept the remastered FD.

Art

Wow! You hit a home run there jakeSFR! I tried the grldr from
Fatdog and it's a different animal. 324K in size having
Modify date of Jan 2020. It works on the Dell 7010 ok.

Thanks much

Art