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Increase available memory

toncho11 edited this page Sep 24, 2024 · 15 revisions

There are cases when we want to increase the memory available for applications. One such case is Elks Doom. The amount of free memory can be seen with the command meminfo.

Configure the kernel at boot

In /bootopts you can set the following parameters:

task=6 buf=8 cache=4 file=20 inode=24 heap=15000 n 

in order to decrease the system memory occupied by Elks.

Load an application with init

You skip bash at start-up to free additional memory and reduce fragmentation of memory. Instead of:

init=/bin/sash

you can put:

init=/elksdoom.os2

The disadvantage is that if you decide to exit Elks Doom you won't be able to return to the console.

Disable unused features

This requires a recompilation of the kernel. In the case of Elks Doom you can disable:

  • networking
  • floppy track caching using CONFIG_TRACK_CACHE in .config, which will slow down program loading, but will save an additional 9K of RAM

Use UMB memory

If your hardware or emulator allow it, you can use unused UMB memory. Please see the dedicated page: Access-to-UMB-memory