[Solved] Not enough memory for modern TC image boot

[PDP-8]

This is more a matter of interest than a showstopper ...

One one particular piece of hardware, if I try to boot anything more recent than TC 4.4, I run into the dreaded

"Not enough memory to load specified image"

Ok, so that means I have to use a
mem=xxx
bootcode to get it recognized properly.

What makes this so painful, is that on this specific box, my keyboard is disabled until *after* boot has succeeded.  So yeah, no way to conveniently add bootcodes, or even make menu selections.

Thing is, on this box, this only happens on TC past the older ver 4.4.  And, any other modern distro I throw at it, has no problem and does not complain about not enough memory to load specified image.

So just wondering, is there a kernel config to TC that changed after say ver 4.4 that causes this, whereas everything else I throw at it doesn't do it?

No complaining mind you - I'll find the right mem=xxx combo eventually.  Just wondering if this is some optimization that TC is doing that confuses just one of my boxes....

[Rich]

Hi PDP-8
You might want to consider providing some more details:

Are you booting the 32 bit or 64 bit kernel?
What kind of hardware is this occurring on? CPU model? Amount of RAM installed?

... What makes this so painful, is that on this specific box, my keyboard is disabled until *after* boot has succeeded.  So yeah, no way to conveniently add bootcodes, or even make menu selections. ...

The only time I've run into that is an old ASUS netbook. Someone thought a Bluetooth keyboard that can't function until
the operating system is loaded was a good idea. Luckily, by using an OTG adapter I was able to plug in a USB keyboard
to access the BIOS, add boot codes and make menu selections.

[curaga]

That message is from the bootloader, not kernel, no? So that computer's BIOS does not tell the bootloader how much RAM there is.

[PDP-8]

To keep issues separate: (on both 32 and 64 bit tc kernels, built manually or with TC installers ..)

Late keyboard entry - not a TC problem.  Same issue exists with any distro, so I either accept the first initial default after a timeout, or once inside modify the boot paramaters manually afterwards for my needs if necessary.

So I can ignore the keyboard thing for now as it is the way it was designed unfortunately.

If it wasn't for the fact that I can load earlier TC versions (4.4 release or older, 32 or 64 bit), or other recent distros (Knoppix 8.6.1, Debian / Devuan -- you name it) without having the memory recognition problem crop up, it piqued my interest.

Full disclosure:  I have two of these 2016 boxes, Asus CN60 64-bit Chromeboxes put into developer mode - well past EOL, so a shame to have them rot.  Total ram is 2GB on one, and the other 4GB.  They work great with Linux for most part, and are booted externally, NOT running under some chrome-os layer.

I just find it weird that they don't complain with TC releases at 4.4 (tc version, not kernel) or earlier, or with most other distros.

So yes, this hardware has it's quirks, but when TC 4.4 or prior *could* boot without complaint, and other recent stuff I throw at it doesn't mention it but boots right up (either 32 or 64 bit variants - I try them all), it just made me wonder.

[PDP-8]

Ran the tests again.  Let's put aside the keyboard weirdness.

TinyCore up to 7.2 - no problems.  Normal boot.

TinyCore 8.0 - problems start.  System reboots.

TinyCore current (as of this writing) - both 32bit coreplus and 64bit tinycoreplus64 - Boot halts with error message about not enough memory.

So that's why I'm wondering what might be triggering this on this piece of hardware.  Older TC has no problems.  Newer ones ver 8 and larger fail in different ways.

[curaga]

Probably their size just increased over some safe backup value the bootloader uses.

[PDP-8]

[SOLVED]

Curaga - you are so right!  Fixed it by using another machine to boot the latest CorePlus 11.1 and used the TC-Installer gui to do all the hard work for me making a bootable flash drive instead of me doing it myself.

Simply used that newly burned flash drive from the other machine, and now the ChromeBox boots very happily with the latest 11.1 with no complaints.

I don't know why I didn't think to try the supplied installer in the first place on a different machine..