maximum RAM addressing

[tenzan]

Hello,
I'm thinking of installing Mint on my Dimension E520 which is still running WinXP, but I have little experience with Linux and only some knowledge of operating systems and hardware in general. At the moment I have 4GB of RAM installed, of which XP recognizes only 3GB. Would Mint be able to use more of it, or are there other parts of the systems (such as the integrated graphics) which are using the RAM? If Mint can recognize more RAM, I'm thinking of upgrading (I think the E520 can theoretically take up to 8GB).

Thanks for your help,
Tenzan

[MintBean]

Mint 64 bit can address more memory than you could possibly fit in any PC. 8Gb is what I have on my laptop and it's a nice comfortable number. That said, 4Gb is good for most use cases.

[rene]

Are the specifications on page 109 of:

http://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-p ... _en-us.pdf

the correct specifications for your machine? If so, "sort of but not really". A Pentium 4 is a 32-bit CPU which sets a fundamental limit at 4GiB -- and even disregarding that, the machine itself does per those specs. Yes, some RAM is used by your internal graphics which together with some additional demands on address space will account for being able to use less than 4 GiB total. Not 1GiB less though; if that 3 GiB that you mention is actual 3 GiB then Linux will be able to use a bit more; I do in fact believe however that Windows XP would also, due to similar memory maps, so not sure where that 3 GiB is coming from.

In any case, given a Pentium 4, we are talking details. If those specs do NOT match your system, if most importantly you have a 64-bit capable CPU and a motherboard supporting more than 4 GiB as well, then things are different: you'd install a 64-bit version of Mint and would be able to use all of your RAM. Please post the output of the terminal command inxi -Fxz (i.e., after booting the machine into a Mint Live USB/DVD), preferably inside of code tags: see the "Code" button at the top of the edit box when composing a reply.

[tenzan]

Thanks for the replies, my E520 has a Core 2 Duo (4300) so it may be able to support 8GB max (officially Dell says 4GB, unofficially it should be 8GB) but I'll worry about extra RAM later. I think 32-bit versions of XP had a limit of 3GB according to some searches I did. Hopefully I will get a small performance upgrade by just changing to Mint. I'm still familiarizing with Mint before I take the plunge, but it looks good so far.

[catweazel]

Hello,
I'm thinking of installing Mint on my Dimension E520

That's an old machine. You ought to verify that you have a 64bit CPU before spending money on RAM.

[rene]

my E520 has a Core 2 Duo (4300) so it may be able to support 8GB max (officially Dell says 4GB, unofficially it should be 8GB)

Right. The Core 2 Duo E4300 is a 64-bit capable CPU indeed (https://ark.intel.com/nl/products/28024 ... 00-MHz-FSB) so you'll be able to install a 64-bit version of Mint and make better use of your RAM; only the bit used as graphics memory won't be available to programs. Although that machione's of course not a screamer, with 4GiB you'll be able to get some additional mileage out of it; with 8GiB if supported by the motherboard definitely.

[Mute Ant]

"machione" An alpine dessert, made with snow, cream and raspberry juice.

[rene]

A screamer after all, I gather.

[tenzan]

It's old but for most surfing and email it still works well enough. A RAM upgrade to 8GB would cost only £24 (something around $30) if I find it necessary, but probably even just the 4GB will be ok. Time to learn more about Mint, I'll consider this question solved now and I'll post others as they come up. Many thanks everyone!

[tenzan]

I finally burned a DVD and started up with Mint--it's working pretty well. The system monitor counted 3.8GB of RAM, which would be about right as I have 4GB minus 256MB used by the onboard graphics, so Mint is able to use all the available RAM. Given that it's fairly smooth anyway I won't worry about upgrading for now. Thanks once again for all the help.