If that's really all we're worried about, perhaps a kernel module that
used some sort of hack to detect the amount of memory could be used
(say by writing random values to memory and reading them back).
Since it's so damn ugly, it probably shouldn't be in the normal kernel
code, but the module could be loaded by install disks and used test
the amount of memory that's actually there, and add the information to
lilo.conf (hopefully the installer would inform the user of what it
was doing.)
Although it doesn't really fix the real problem, at least this would
fix the political problem; since most of the "final users" you are
referring to will be using installers. It will also llow us to place
blame where it belongs: on the broken BIOSes, without looking like
we're finger pointing.
That said, I have to admit that I don't know if anything simple will
work, or anything like this will work; it's just a suggestion. Maybe
I'll have a look at some kernel code in the meantime.
-- Embrace marginalization Brian Perkins bperkins@netspace.org- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.rutgers.edu Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/