F17 anaconda 768MB limit

kldixon · #1 2nd March 2012, 02:21 PM

Is there any hope that the 768MB memory constraint of anaconda be reduced for Fedora 17?
http://forums.fedoraforum.org/showpo...08&postcount=6

**AdamW** · #2 2nd March 2012, 10:47 PM

yes, it certainly will. we just need to get around to doing some testing to establish the new correct minimum. It'll be at most 512MB, hopefully less than that.

Riky75 · #3 5th April 2012, 05:38 PM

Hello,

does anybody know whether it is possible already with the alpha release or not?

Thanks

Riky

kldixon · #4 5th April 2012, 05:53 PM

The last time I tried was Beta RC1 netinst and that was still 768MB

nonamedotc · #5 5th April 2012, 06:24 PM

It is 768MB minimum until beta RC3. May be it will be changed for beta release - I do not know ..

**AdamW** · #6 10th April 2012, 03:57 AM

still didn't get around to it. sigh. there is a parameter you can pass to disable the check now, though. remind me to bug wwoods to tell me what it is.

Ssl · #7 10th April 2012, 03:17 PM

Hi, here is workaround - edit your /usr/sbin/anaconda, set needed_ram = 0 and start installation. Works for me on old notebook w/512 MB of RAM

nonamedotc · #8 10th April 2012, 03:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ssl

Hi, here is workaround - edit your /usr/sbin/anaconda, set needed_ram = 0 and start installation. Works for me on old notebook w/512 MB of RAM

Let me see if I understand this right - This would work in a Live CD, yes. But what about a Full DVD installation? I am not sure if this is still possible.

Ssl · #9 11th April 2012, 02:51 AM

I would rather wait for a command line param from Adam - for all install media. Haven't tried dvd install media for years, perhaps you could kill anaconda process from vt, edit mentioned file and start it again ?

Robby · #10 25th May 2012, 03:12 PM

More than a month has gone by now, any more concrete news on this?
What is the command line parameter, if any? And does it work on all installation media?
Has anyone tested the absolute lowest amount of RAM required? For example, with Fedora 10 384MB of RAM was enough, are we finally back to this level again or is more RAM still required?

nonamedotc · #11 25th May 2012, 03:52 PM

Well, I have used ~~500 MB~~ 512MB RAM on Virtualbox and was able to install it. That's the lowest I have checked...

**AdamW** · #12 25th May 2012, 06:31 PM

The final release has the limit at 512MB, and there's a parameter you can pass to disable the check, I think 'nomemcheck' or 'inst.nomemcheck'.

Robby · #13 26th May 2012, 04:07 PM

I have just done a fairly default test installation of Fedora 17.RC4 using DVD media on a physical machine with only 256MB of RAM using 'nomemcheck' and that worked!

I'm happy, because this means I can for sure install it on a 384MB machine that is currently running Fedora 10. Awesome!

RupertPupkin · #14 26th May 2012, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Robby

I have just done a fairly default test installation of Fedora 17.RC4 using DVD media on a physical machine with only 256MB of RAM using 'nomemcheck' and that worked!

Awesome! I hope this info goes in the Fedora Project wiki. More people need to know about this! I always thought that such a high memory requirement went against the idea of using Linux to make old machines useful. Now we won't have to worry about that.

**AdamW** · #15 26th May 2012, 09:19 PM

Success with 256MB is by no means assured; it does depend to an extent on the package set you install and also on how much swap space anaconda can take advantage of. I believe anaconda will use any swap space it finds on a target drive, but I'm not totally sure of the details.