Re: [tlug] Memory upgrade and CPU bit-width question

[David J Iannucci <jlinux@example.com>]

On Sun, Dec 20, 2015, at 23:27, Kalin KOZHUHAROV wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2015 at 6:04 PM, Raymond Wan <rwan.kyoto@example.com>
> >> Will I be wasting my time to go through a lot of gyrations to
> >> configure my OS as 64-bit, because it just won't help in the end
> >> anyway?  Might even make the box slower?
> >
> > How about putting a 64-bit version of Linux on a CD/USB drive and
> > booting off of that and see if it works?  That is, can all 4 GB of
> > memory be detected.
> >
> +1
>
> Since you are running Gentoo (as /me), the closest is to download
> SysRescueCD and select the 64-bit kernel (one of them) on boot.
> http://www.sysresccd.org/Download
>
> And of course: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Lenovo_ThinkPad_X61 It
> looks like it is a normal 64bit machine (arch-wise) based on the
> supposedly working kernel config.
>
> Kalin.

Thanks for the followups and ideas Kalin and Ray.... this was sorta
obvious I guess... wish I had thought of it first :=)

Thought I'd better send an update... I tried a few times with System
Rescue CD, installed on a USB stick. I tried installing it on the stick
two different ways: using isohybrid following by dd, and using the GUI
utility unetbootin. In both cases, I couldn't boot the thing. Grub (I
guess it's grub?) told me something like "Failed to load COM32 file".

So I googled around for solutions to that... found some ideas in the
Ubuntu world, followed those up, still no go. So I gave up on
SysResCD. Crazy, right?? A distro like that, you'd think should boot
pretty much anywhere. Mine is a 2009 Thinkpad - should be no problems.
Maybe it would have worked had I burned it to a CD, but I had had
enough of it by then.

Figured I just needed any 64-bit distro - found Fatdog64. Pop it onto my
USB, and it boots right up.  Result: `free` tells me that the machine
has 3974MB, which looks like 97% of 4GB. When I'm booting my usual 32
bit kernel, I only see 3026MB, which looks like about 76% of 4GB. So the
64-bit system clearly can see much more memory, close to the total (or
for all I know, maybe one will never actually see 100%?)

So now, because I've also got a sweet new SSD, I'm just gonna do a fresh
install of Gentoo onto the SSD and make it a 64-bit system all at once.
Can't wait for the result :=)

Anyone who has read this far and has hints and dos-and-donts related
to any of this, esp. the transition to SSD, I'd be very grateful to
hear them!

Dave