512MB RAM on Slackware ARM?

Hi folks,

Sorry if this is a noob question and/or it's been asked before.

Has anybody managed to get their Raspberry Pi model B working with Slackware ARM using the full 512MB RAM? If so, how did you achieve it?

Many thanks,

Update to the latest firmware https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware


Also splitting ram to the gpu is now done in /boot/config.txt and not start.elf anymore.

Update to the latest firmware https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware
Also splitting ram to the gpu is now done in /boot/config.txt and not start.elf anymore.

Thanks, will do that right away!

Update to the latest firmware https://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware
Also splitting ram to the gpu is now done in /boot/config.txt and not start.elf anymore.

After trying several methods of updating the firmware and failing miserably at every attempt, I went back to an idea a friend had about simply updating to kernel 3.6.1 (and modules) using installpkg. That works!!! but only after installing the arm496_start.elf file, overwriting the default start.elf. Now I can see i have almost 500MB RAM.

It seems the config.txt is not controlling my RAM allocation at all, much the reverse. Right now I have specified gpu_mem=32 in config.txt but the system is still only giving me 16MB because I have arm496_start.elf in my boot directory.

Thanks for trying to help, but it turns out the solution was the exact opposite of the advice you gave me.

You didn`t update all the firmware files. Somewhere .. you messed up something. arm496_start.elf doesn`t control the amount of ram going to the gpu. Only start.elf controlled that but now this is done in config.txt

Before config.txt, you allocated ram to gpu only renaming arm496_start.elf to start.elf .

You didn`t update all the firmware files. Somewhere .. you messed up something. arm496_start.elf doesn`t control the amount of ram going to the gpu. Only start.elf controlled that but now this is done in config.txt

Before config.txt, you allocated ram to gpu only renaming arm496_start.elf to start.elf .

...

I have a Raspberry Pi working perfectly and running Slackware ARM 13.37 - WITH 480MB SYSTEM RAM / 32MB GPU RAM!

You didn`t update all the firmware files. Somewhere .. you messed up something. arm496_start.elf doesn`t control the amount of ram going to the gpu. Only start.elf controlled that but now this is done in config.txt

Before config.txt, you allocated ram to gpu only renaming arm496_start.elf to start.elf .

... and I have to apologise and eat humble pie (instead of Raspberry Pi) because the fault was with the SDHC card I was using - i.e. unbranded, cheap & chearful. I recently switched to Kingston SD10G2 cards and hey presto, everything you advised me to do worked first time, every time! Thanks.

No problem, I advise you to use SanDisk, you can`t go wrong with it !

Ooops... SanDisk is the SDHC card that gave me problems in the first instance. Sorry I will be avoiding them like the plague.

Ooops... SanDisk is the SDHC card that gave me problems in the first instance. Sorry I will be avoiding them like the plague.

I have had no trouble with Sandisk cards. You do, however, have to be careful when buying them via eBay as reputedly about 70% of the ones there are fake.

Okay, I've switched out the firmware etc. Do I need to change my kernel to get all of the ram to show up?