Why does NI-488.2 fail to install on RedHat Linux with 4GB RAM?

[tober-viasat]

I am using a system running RedHat EL WS 4 Update 4 x86 with 4GB of RAM installed. When I run the install script for the NI-488.2 GPIB drivers, or run updateNIDrivers, it fails to install citing "More than 4GB of addressable memory detected". These drivers are supposed to support up to 4GB of RAM, and /proc/meminfo shows that I'm under that limit. I have included the relevant portions of niSystemReport.out.gz below.

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/bin/uname -a:
Linux JCS-LINUX 2.6.9-42.ELsmp #1 SMP Wed Jul 12 23:27:17 EDT 2006 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
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/etc/redhat-release:
Red Hat Enterprise Linux WS release 4 (Nahant Update 4)
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/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src make:
/bin/cp nikal.c objects/nikal.c
/bin/cp nikal.h objects/nikal.h
make -C /lib/modules/2.6.9-42.ELsmp/source SUBDIRS=/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects modules
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-42.EL-smp-i686'
  CC [M]  /usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.o
  Building modules, stage 2.
  MODPOST
  CC      /usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.mod.o
  LD [M]  /usr/local/natinst/nikal/src/objects/nikal.ko
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/kernels/2.6.9-42.EL-smp-i686'
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/usr/local/natinst/nikal/src

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/usr/bin/tail /var/log/messages:
May 21 11:43:47 JCS-LINUX gconfd (tober-6086): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/tober/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1
May 21 11:43:47 JCS-LINUX gconfd (tober-6086): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2
May 21 11:44:06 JCS-LINUX gconfd (tober-6086): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/tober/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 0
May 21 11:44:48 JCS-LINUX su(pam_unix)[6217]: session opened for user root by tober(uid=1053)
May 21 11:45:07 JCS-LINUX kernel: [nikal] More than 4GB of addressable memory detected.
May 21 11:45:07 JCS-LINUX kernel: [nikal] This configuration is not supported.  Check the release notes for more information.
May 21 11:45:10 JCS-LINUX kernel: usb 7-2: usbfs: process 6751 (lsusb) did not claim interface 0 before use
May 21 11:45:51 JCS-LINUX su(pam_unix)[6797]: session opened for user root by tober(uid=1053)
May 21 11:46:05 JCS-LINUX kernel: [nikal] More than 4GB of addressable memory detected.
May 21 11:46:05 JCS-LINUX kernel: [nikal] This configuration is not supported.  Check the release notes for more information.
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/proc/meminfo:
MemTotal:      4141656 kB
MemFree:       3475156 kB
Buffers:         57784 kB
Cached:         374856 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:         246464 kB
Inactive:       307304 kB
HighTotal:     3406208 kB
HighFree:      2895168 kB
LowTotal:       735448 kB
LowFree:        579988 kB
SwapTotal:     2031608 kB
SwapFree:      2031608 kB
Dirty:            2712 kB
Writeback:           0 kB
Mapped:         149388 kB
Slab:            85348 kB
CommitLimit:   4102436 kB
Committed_AS:   308592 kB
PageTables:       3356 kB
VmallocTotal:   237560 kB
VmallocUsed:     44068 kB
VmallocChunk:   186356 kB
HugePages_Total:     0
HugePages_Free:      0
Hugepagesize:     2048 kB
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[pBerg]

Howdy tober,

Does this help?

[Shawn B.]

The other option is to use 64-bit Linux.  You can download the beta version of NI-488.2 for 64-bit RHEL 5 that will not have this restriction.


Shawn Bohrer
National Instruments

[pBerg]

Howdy,

One more quick thing...Users have reported that switching to the LILO boot loader from, say, GRUB, has worked in getting 4GB RAM system configurations working. The addition of the uppermem command which is required when setting vmalloc to 256M is reportedly a known issue with GRUB. With LILO, you should be able to set vmalloc=256M and mem=4096M without specifying uppermem. Though I can't test this myself, it very well may eliminate the errors you see. As sort of an additional piece of information, I thought it worthwhile to include this article: Boot loader showdown: Getting to know LILO and GRUB .