Arch Linux

nphuracm

Member

From: China

Registered: 2022-07-16

Posts: 59

Limine might be affecting accessible memory size in Linux

I set up dualboot with Limine (UEFI) and the following setup:

SATA6G_1: My SSD with Windows on it.
SATA6G_2: My DVD RW Drive.
SATA6G_3: My data drive.
SATA6G_4: My Linux drive where Limine and the Arch rootfs were located.
I do not use swap space.
My memory setup is two Kingston HyperX Fury 8GiB  DDR3-1866 sticks, running in dual-channel.

And here's my limine.cfg:

TIMEOUT=10

:Arch Linux

PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_PATH=boot:///vmlinuz-linux
CMDLINE=root=UUID=29ae711d-93e6-469d-a3d0-bdb70bb35b4e quiet splash loglevel=3 rd.udev.log_priority=3 vt.global_cursor_default=0 rw
MODULE_PATH=boot:///initramfs-linux.img

:Arch Linux (Fallback initramfs)

PROTOCOL=linux
KERNEL_PATH=boot:///vmlinuz-linux
CMDLINE=root=UUID=29ae711d-93e6-469d-a3d0-bdb70bb35b4e
MODULE_PATH=boot:///initramfs-linux-fallback.img

:Windows 11 (on SSD)

PROTOCOL=chainload
IMAGE_PATH=guid://9fb1e7dd-aa75-4a37-ae56-fbb373e01521/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi

:EFI Shell

PROTOCOL=chainload
IMAGE_PATH=boot:///shell.efi

I also set up Plymouth and have some leftover, unused v86d and uvesafb garbage.

The fact:
1. Booting onto Windows shows that the memory size is normal - 16 GiB.
2. In my former setup where Linux is booted from the SSD with EFISTUB, the memory size is also 16 GiB.
3. In my current setup where Linux is booted from SATA6G_4 with Limine and Plymouth the detected memory size went all the way down to 12.7 GiB. (13302272 kB in /proc/meminfo)

I can't understand why. I don't want to have such a big portion of my RAM be inaccessible from my favorite OS.
Is there a good-enough workaround or do I have to just give up Limine and go back to EFISTUB boot?