Memory and libnipalu.so issue on Scientific Linux

[j2m]

We have installed the new NI-488.2 v2.9 driver on a Scientific Linux 6 distribution and got the "libnipalu.so failed to initialize" error message.

From other posts on this forum (https://decibel.ni.com/content/message/26221#26221), we came to suspect a memory issue (our machine had 8 Go RAM installed).

Since we did not understand very well how to use the "mem=4096M" command, we simply removed the excess RAM physically.

[If I understand correctly, any extra memory beyond the limit set by software will become inaccessible to the system as a whole, not just to the NI drivers. (correct?)]

We were finally able to suppress the error, but only by reducing the RAM to 2 Go!

From the other posts, it seems that 4 Go should be accepted but only if the RAM limit of 4096 is also set by software.

Could anybody explain us how/where exactly the mem=4096M variable should be set? One previous attempt was unsuccessful, so more detailed instructions would be welcome.

Thanks a lot.

[Josh Cartwright]

j2m wrote:

We have installed the new NI-488.2 v2.9 driver on a Scientific Linux 6 distribution and got the "libnipalu.so failed to initialize" error message.

From other posts on this forum (https://decibel.ni.com/content/message/26221#26221), we came to suspect a memory issue (our machine had 8 Go RAM installed).

Since we did not understand very well how to use the "mem=4096M" command, we simply removed the excess RAM physically.

[If I understand correctly, any extra memory beyond the limit set by software will become inaccessible to the system as a whole, not just to the NI drivers. (correct?)]

That is correct.  The NI-488.2 driver currently only supports running in systems where no RAM is mapped above the 4G address boundary.

We were finally able to suppress the error, but only by reducing the RAM to 2 Go!

From the other posts, it seems that 4 Go should be accepted but only if the RAM limit of 4096 is also set by software.

It is possible that NI drivers will still fail to load even when the machine has less than 4G of RAM.  The reason is that some BIOS's will freely map RAM above the 4G address boundary.  NI-488.2 will fail to load if it can address RAM above the 4G address boundary

Could anybody explain us how/where exactly the mem=4096M variable should be set? One previous attempt was unsuccessful, so more detailed instructions would be welcome.

This is typically done by editing the /boot/grub/menu.lst or /boot/grub/grub.conf and appending 'mem=4096M' on the 'kernel' line that matches the kernel you are booting.

[j2m]

ok. So we were on the right track.

Could you just tell me what you mean by "typically done by … or …".

Is this two equivalent choices or does it depend on the system / linux distribution and/or version? How should I decide?

Sorry for the question, but I am not at all an experienced linux user.

Thank you for your help.

[Josh Cartwright]

j2m wrote:

ok. So we were on the right track.

Could you just tell me what you mean by "typically done by … or …".

Is this two equivalent choices or does it depend on the system / linux distribution and/or version? How should I decide?

Sure. How to actually go about adding the 'mem=4096M' option on the kernel command line is dependent on which boot loader is used.  Most distributions ship with GRUB as the default boot loader, but there are differences in how GRUB manages the kernel command line, based on version.  It is a hard problem to specify in detail what needs to be done in every version of every distribution.

In your case, however, since you are running Scientific Linux 6, I suspect the bootloader is GRUB 0.97, in which case the configuration /boot/grub/menu.lst OR /boot/grub/grub.conf.  Modifying either of those should do what you want.  In fact, I suspect /boot/grub/menu.lst is just a symbolic link to /boot/grub/grub.conf.

[j2m]

This makes sense. Now we need to put back the RAM and try it.

I will post the result here but it may take a few days since we have started doing other tests on the machine.