Linux kernel Oops on boot with GRUB without --no-mem-option flag - here's why

[Derrik Pates]

I looked at the 'displaymem' output on the system I've had troubles with
GRUB on - I've discovered why it Oops'es on boot without the
--no-mem-option flag passed to the 'kernel' command. For some reason, the
systems in question (Compaq ProLiant 3000 systems, type P09) think they
have a 0-byte-long usable memory range - starting at the 4 GB mark.
Therefore, GRUB thinks the max address is at - tada! - 4 gigabytes. These
systems, however, have only 512 MB of RAM apiece, so I know that's wrong.
I'll be looking at modifying the code in stage2/common.c that gets a value
for the max_addr variable, to hopefully make it check for a 0-byte-long
usable range, and ignore it.

Derrik Pates      |   Sysadmin, Douglas School   |    #linuxOS on EFnet
address@hidden |     District (dsdk12.net)    |    #linuxOS on OPN