[Gllug] How much system memory do I have?

[ryan-ir at hai.fi]

On Thu, May 07, 2009 at 07:00:34AM +0100, John Winters wrote:
> ryan-ir at hai.fi wrote:
> > Good Day all.
> > 
> > Last Monday I thought that I would go down to Tottenham Court Road and
> > buy myself a laptop. I got something but yesterday I started to wonder
> > about how much RAM this computer actually has - it says 4GBs on the box.
> 
> [snip report of different OSs seeing different amounts of RAM]
> 
> There are two different questions here:
> 
> 1) How much RAM does my computer have?
> 
>    Pretty certainly 4 Gigs
> 
> 2) How much RAM can my OS address?
> 
>    If you're running a 32-bit operating system then you will find that
> the OS is restricted to anywhere between 3 and 3.5 Gigs.  Arguably when
> the OS is reporting how much RAM there is it should perhaps say "4 Gigs
> but I can use only 3" rather than just saying "3 Gigs".
> 
> You don't say what processor the laptop has, but given its age and the
> fact that it has 4G of RAM installed I would expect it to be 64 bit
> capable.  Install the 64 bit version of Ubuntu and you will find you can
> use all your RAM.

Hello

And thank you for your kind and informative response. I say kind because I
was just wondering why the H#?? didn't I just open the thing and look.

The processor is infact a 64 bit one but I have been a little reluctant to
play with a 64 bit version of linux. Maybe I should bite the bullet and give
one a go - no doubt it will be educational.

Take Care!

t. ir
> 
> HTH
> John
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