No suitable memory target error following gnipsel.com Mint Preempt Kernel Patch

I have a 64 Gb SSD drive & successfully installed Mint 19.1. I followed the instructions here: gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/uspace/linuxmint19-rt.html

After installing the Grub Customizer & rebooting I am unable to start the system. I'm getting an error "no suitable memory target found".

During the install, I allowed the Mint installer to create default partitions on the drive. Do I need to manually create root, home & swap partitions to get rid of this error? Is there something I can during the xconfiguration step to reduce the size - perhaps strip developer modules?

pmconsulting wrote: I have a 64 Gb SSD drive & successfully installed Mint 19.1. I followed the instructions here: gnipsel.com/linuxcnc/uspace/linuxmint19-rt.html

After installing the Grub Customizer & rebooting I am unable to start the system. I'm getting an error "no suitable memory target found".

During the install, I allowed the Mint installer to create default partitions on the drive. Do I need to manually create root, home & swap partitions to get rid of this error? Is there something I can during the xconfiguration step to reduce the size - perhaps strip developer modules?

The kernel modules were built with all symbols. So your initrd is probably way bigger than it is suppose to be.

I had the same problem.

bevins wrote: I had the same problem.

And what was your solution?

That's where unix starts to turn Greek to me. Kernel modules, symbols & initrd are all just strange words. I have a hunch that kernel modules are similar to apache modules, but I have no idea what symbols are or what an initrd is let alone what I'm supposed to to to them or how I'm supposed to do it.

andypugh wrote:

bevins wrote: I had the same problem.

And what was your solution?

Install Debian 9.

I tried stripping symbols and spent about hours on it. I needed to get up and running so I installed Debian 9.
I will revisit soon though as I want mint

The kernel makefile should strip debug symbols with.... make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 modules_install or
Make sure CONFIG_DEBUG_INFO is not defined.

This should work. I haven't tried it but will as soon as I get a chance.

I had this happen to me too.

In fact it happened first as I tried to install Mint 19.2, then I tried Lubuntu 19.04 and the same thing hppened.

And I can say I installed Mint 19.2 on a laptop first, with no problem.

I did search for a solution, and I did find one too:
On StackEchange
What you are saying about initird.img getting to big is exactly what happens. In my case it was the same as in the link, a 10 times as large file. Mine ended up at over 600 megabyte!
The instructions in the link are correct, but the commands needs to be applied to the image downloaded. Not in the locations shown in the thread, I tried that first, and that didn't work. But after trying it in the dir made in the process it worked!

So try:


in the directory where you are making the RT kernel. The command is copy/paste from the thread, and should be applied exactly as this, with space before the + in the end.

I'm no Linux expert, so I can't say exactly at what stage of the process this should be done. I did it after first building the new kernel and trying to start it (and it failed). I had to boot in the non-RT version again to fix it.
So it if John Thornton (or someone with access to that site) could incorporate this in to those guides, with the correct details on when in the process to apply it, I think it might help others as well.

I also tried Wheezy, and that did work as expected. But seeing the interface compared to Mint made me go back to that HD and try some more.
I really do appreciate the opportunity to install LinuxCNC on a more modern and complete Linux version! The standard (Wheezy) version feels kind of..... simple, and also looks kind of old.
And now that we have a choice I'm happy! So thanks for the effort of making these guides. I would not be able to do this without them.

So at what point did you in corporate the "find . -name *.ko -exec strip --strip-unneeded {} + " in the Johns tutorial? I'm getting the same error

I just did it after it had failed. I don't have enough Linux knowledge to give more detailed instructions, so I can only hope the guys that made the guide are able to give you more details than what I gave in my first post.
I just implemented it as I described, and in accordance with the instructions in the links provided.

And I assume they need to know if more are experiencing this problem to know they need to include it in the instructions. Which you now confirm.

Sorry I'm not able to give you more details.

I had the same problem, and found the solutions in this thread. There was a question of sequence, which is what I hope to contribute.

From: Gnipsel's Linux Mint 19.1 RT Kernel guide

Now build the kernel.
make

After make, I ran:
find . -name *.ko -exec strip --strip-unneeded {} +


Go take a nap or have a cup of coffee… then install the kernel.

[strike]sudo make modules_install[/strike]

instead of sudo make_moules install, I ran
sudo make INSTALL_MOD_STRIP=1 modules_install

sudo make install


Otherwise, I followed all beginning and end steps in that guide. The only other issue I encountered (deviation from the guide) was a few instances of:

Makefile:960: "Cannot use CONFIG_STACK_VALIDATION=y, please install libelf-dev, libelf-devel or elfutils-libelf-devel"

Which I resolved by running

sudo apt-get install libelf-dev

before make. After all of this, 'uname -a' yields: Linux mint 4.19.1-rt3 #1 SMP PREEMPT RT Mon Mar 2 07:00:03 EST 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

As always, hope the info helps!

sJ[hr]