8.04 plus 8GB RAM

[Rashkae]

Vincent Trouilliez wrote:
>>> Well, I've never tried this with Ubuntu, but if this were me, I would
>>> just install the Nvidia drivers.. 
> 
> Yeah, I have just come to the same conlusion after trying to follow
> instructions in the Ubuntu wiki... 99% wouldn't work, and it was
> complicated indeed.
> So I tried installing the nvidia driver, but the installer complains
> that the kernel (the server one then) is a "xen" kernel, and it refuses
> to install on "xen" kernel, it says !
> 
> Great, so either way I have to recompile, be it to ADD large mem
> support to the generic kernel, or to REMOVE xen stuff from the server
> one. Ouch ! ;-/
> Okay I give up, I didn't though it would prove that challenging, so I
> will just be happy with my 3.2BG instead of 4.0 GB... 
> I still wonder why the large mem option was not enabled in the generic
> kernel though, since RAM is mega cheap and many computers probably
> have, or will soon come, with 4GB. 
> 

Because Enabling PAE (that's the large memory stuff, couldn't remember
the acronym before) causes the kernel to hoark a hairball if you try to
boot on hardware that doesn't support it.  As well, a kernel that
supports more memory needs to consume more memory (something about some
kind of kernel memory map that's a fixed size or some such) and is
therefore less efficient on systems that don't need it.

And finally, all those consumers with more than 2GB of ram probably have
a 64-bit CPU, and should therefore be investing energy in making the
switch to a 64-bit OS, rather than trying to shoehorn large memory
support in 32-bits.