"not Enough Memory For Ram Disk"

I have been successfully running SUSE 9.2 for years. I am trying to install openSUSE 10.3 on an empty partition on the same computer (that partition previously had Linspire on it, which also worked fine). I am trying to follow the no-CD installation instructions at
http://en.opensuse.org/Installation_without_CD

since I have no access to a CD-burner.

I have successfully installed the inst-initrd and inst-linux in my /boot directory (obtained fromftp://mirrors.kernel.org/opensuse/distribution/10.3/iso/cd/openSUSE-10.3-GM-i386-mini.iso and yes I checked the md5sum, and compared the copy in /boot with the version in the loop-mounted iso file to make sure no copy-error happened), and updated my /etc/lilo.conf file to refer to them. I can still successfully boot my old working 9.2 OS, but attempting to boot the installation kernel results in the error message which titles this post: "Not enough memory for RAM disk". I have 384MB of memory, which should be plenty, no?

I have tried adding addswap=0, addswap=-1, addswap=hda2, and addswap=/dev/hda2, with no change in behavior. With addswap=-1 it doesn't even get far enough to ask me to specify a swap partition. I have also tried _tmpfs=0 with no change in behavior.

I also tried replacing the 15MB(gzip)/37MB(uncompressed) inst-initrd with my old working one (which is 1.2MB compressed). Again, I got the same "Not enough memory for RAM disk" error. This is interesting since the smaller initrd works just fine with my old kernel, so I am guessing it's not the initrd. Perhaps the installation kernel is not finding my memory? BIOS correctly reports it, and (of course), the 9.2 kernel recognizes and uses it just fine.

Here's my partition table (from "fdisk -l"):

susewarp:/boot # fdisk -l

Disk /dev/hda: 40.0 GB, 40020664320 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 4865 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/hda1 * 1 49 393561 83 Linux
/dev/hda2 50 138 714892+ 82 Linux swap
/dev/hda3 139 2338 17671500 83 Linux
/dev/hda4 2339 4865 20298127+ 83 Linux


and my lilo.conf:
susewarp:/boot # cat /etc/lilo.conf
# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Thu Nov 18 20:52:20 2004


message = /boot/message
timeout = 80
prompt
default = Linux
boot = /dev/hda
lba32

image = /boot/memtest.bin
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: "Memory_Test"###
label = Memory_Test
optional
append = ""

image = /boot/vmlinuz
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linux###
label = Linux
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hda4
append = "auto splash=silent desktop resume=/dev/hda2 showopts"

image = /boot/inst-linux
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Linspire###
label = Install_SUSE
initrd = /boot/inst-initrd
root = /dev/hda3
append = "addswap=-1 showopts"

image = /boot/vmlinuz
###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Failsafe###
label = Failsafe
initrd = /boot/initrd
optional
root = /dev/hda4
vga = normal
append = "showopts ide=nodma apm=off acpi=off noresume nosmp noapic maxcpus=0 3"

--------------

Any help is highly appreciated! The system is some cheap Chinese generic PC clone with an AthlonXP cpu. It originally came with Linspire. I re-partitioned and added SUSE 9.1 (upgraded to 9.2). It dual-booted either OS just fine. I just nuked the Linspire, re-mkfs'd, and am trying to install 10.3 on the now empty partition (/dev/hda3). I can still boot and use the 9.2 system fine, so I haven't broken anything (yet!).

--Dave

It could be that your old LILO isn't smart enough to handle contemporary initrds, which I believe have changed from compressed ext2 filesystems to compressed cpio or tar archives. You could try booting with GRUB on a floppy pointing to the disk kernel and initrd, or perhaps updating your LILO version first. Or more daring, switch to a recent GRUB for booting.

You might also be able to chainload GRUB from LILO, though my speculation is ahead of my analysis.

It could be that your old LILO isn't smart enough to handle contemporary initrds, which I believe have changed from compressed ext2 filesystems to compressed cpio or tar archives. You could try booting with GRUB on a floppy pointing to the disk kernel and initrd, or perhaps updating your LILO version first. Or more daring, switch to a recent GRUB for booting.

You might also be able to chainload GRUB from LILO, though my speculation is ahead of my analysis.
[/b]

You are correct about the initrd's -- my old ones are gzipped ext2 filesystems, and the new ones are gzipped cpio images. That likely explains the problem. (On the other hand, I get the same "not enough memory" error when I use the old initrd with the new kernel.)

So, now, how can I install a modern lilo? I can't use YaST to update that module, because all software updates are broken (that's actually the reason for my upgrading the OS in the first place). I have downloaded all the 10.3 iso's, can I install out of one of those? If so, how?

It seems like lilo is probably just one binary (/sbin/lilo) and two other files (/etc/lilo.conf and the executable that gets stored in the MBR, or maybe that's buried in /sbin/lilo?), so maybe I can just copy stuff in by hand?

Also, does anyone know whether the new lilo can deal with the old-style ext2 initrd's? Or will I lose the ability to boot my old OS. Can someone point me directly to the source code for lilo, or email it to purves@warp.org?

I'd like to get this right the first time, as I'm liable to end up with an unbootable system by messing with lilo.

--Dave

The current release can be found at:

http://lilo.go.dyndns.org/

Thank you for the pointers to the source. I was able to find an undocumented flag ("large-memory") which fixes the problem. Later, I had to remove the documented flag I had been using ("mem=384M") to complete booting, but I have now successfully installed. Thank you!

--Dave

Excellent. Now that you have 10.3 running, you could switch to GRUB.