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#1 2012-07-18 21:03:16

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

Am attempting to do a fresh install of Arch on my laptop (Asus UL80V Series), but hae been unsuccessful after two attempts with two different images:
  archlinux-2011.08.19-core-i686.iso
  archlinux-2012.06.05_04-00-01-core-i686.iso

The problem is the same: after loading boot/i686/vmlinuz, the following error message appears while loading boot/i686/archiso.img:

  Not enough memory to load specified image.

I have about 4 Gb RAM in my laptop, memory check showed no errors.

Is there some way I can edit the load command to avoid this, or is there some other work around?

Thanks,

Thea

Last edited by thea (2012-07-24 00:04:26)

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#2 2012-07-18 22:03:49

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
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Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

Whoa there ... you did something wrong in making the bootable media.

It should not be trying to load the archiso.img, it should just be loading an initramfs.img.

Are you booting from usb, or how?  How did you make the bootable media?

Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-18 22:04:45)


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#3 2012-07-18 22:33:07

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

The image was booted from a CD.

This was the process:
1. Copied archlinux-2012.06.05_04-00-01-core-i686.iso from http://releng.archlinux.org/isos/
2. Burned this onto a CD
3. Booted my laptop on the CD

I got what appeared to be a normal Arch Linux installation menu.

thea

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#4 2012-07-18 22:47:46

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

I should add, there is no 'initramfs.img' on the CD.

t.

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#5 2012-07-18 23:09:40

Trilby
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Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
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Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

OK I'm confused.  Did it boot or not?

You first said you got that error while trying to boot, now you say you got to an installation menu.  Can you give a better overview of what you have done and at what stage this error appeared?

I can't help but suspect there is a grub menu.lst pointing to the disk img rather than an initramfs img that is accounting for the error you originally quoted.

Last edited by Trilby (2012-07-18 23:10:30)


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#6 2012-07-18 23:27:38

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

ok, my apologies for the confusion.

The CD is bootable. That is: when I put the CD into its tray and turn on the computer, first the ASUS logo appears, then a blinking cursor in the upper left-hand corner, and then a one-line message about the installation media (I think, doesn't show for long), and then the Arch Linux installation menu, consisting of the following options:
- boot Arch Linux
- boot existing OS
- run Memtest86
- hardware info
- reboot
- power off

If I select 'Boot Arch Linux', I immediately get the two loading messages as indicated in my initial posting. The error message occurs after the second loading fails (stops after about 13 dots)

So that's what i mean by 'boots'. The OS does not boot, the disk only gets me as far as the installation menu.

I have an older installation CD (self-burned) which works, and the contents of which look rather different than the CD in question (from June this year). The only problem with it is that I can't use my network card after installing it (see an earlier posting by me today).

BTW I have just installed Ubuntu on the laptop -- far from ideal as I really want to continue to use Arch on that machine. But it does indicate that something is wrong with the Arch installation process -- could well be that I am not doing something correctly, but it would be great to find out what.

thanks for any help!

t.

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#7 2012-07-18 23:45:13

Trilby
Inspector Parrot
Registered: 2011-11-29
Posts: 29,449
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Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

Hmm, that does make more sense, thanks.

I suspect the iso is bad.  I have been trying to confirm this myself, but I can't even mount the thing to check it out.  Have you tried other isos?

Alternately, you can use the old CD and do a netinstall.


"UNIX is simple and coherent..." - Dennis Ritchie, "GNU's Not UNIX" -  Richard Stallman

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#8 2012-07-19 00:12:49

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

yes, thanks, with the Ubuntu running ok I should be able to do a netinstall. Wish I knew what the problem is, however ...

thanks again,

t.

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#9 2012-07-19 13:45:38

Lone_Wolf
Member
From: Netherlands, Europe
Registered: 2005-10-04
Posts: 11,868

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

Thea, you could also try the 'unofficial' archboot isos made by tpowa.
see https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=143541 for details .


Disliking systemd intensely, but not satisfied with alternatives so focusing on taming systemd.


(A works at time B)  && (time C > time B ) ≠  (A works at time C)

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#10 2012-07-24 00:07:35

thea
Member
Registered: 2006-12-22
Posts: 86

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

I found an image from 2010.05 that installed with no memory errors. The update was somewhat tedious but successful. The memory error problem has not really been solved, but rather a successful workaround found. Which does the job, and thus solves my installation problem.

Many thanks to those who helped me with this issue!

thea

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#11 2013-03-05 03:25:23

jwatte
Member
Registered: 2012-06-22
Posts: 58

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

I have the same problem with archlinux-2013.03.01-dual.iso and using syslinux/memdisk.
I can boot the syslinux/memdisk ISO just fine. Then when it goes to try to chain-boot the arch64 target image, I get the "not enough memory to load the specified image" problem.
My laptop also has 4 GB of RAM, and is booting off a 8 GB USB stick.
When I boot off the same stick on a system with 16 GB RAM, it actually boots.
Given that the ISO itself is only 500 MB uncompressed, how could this be a problem? Is there a bug in size requirements calculations? Or is the requirements really > 4 GB to boot the arch ISO from USB with syslinux-bootable flash drive?

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#12 2013-10-03 21:58:21

rob1
Member
Registered: 2013-10-03
Posts: 1

Re: installation will not start due to insufficient memory [SOLVED]

I had the same problem and fixed with the following;
- select "boot Arch Linux"
- hit tab instead of return
- append "mem=4G"
- hit return

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