Comment 3 for bug 219868

I've now added the kernel as an "also affected" package as looking at the kernel sources as it appears that the only way that the "initrd extends beyond end of memory" error can occur is if the Hardy kernel now gets the amount of LOWMEM wrong on my hardware.

The working Gutsy kernel says:

$ dmesg | grep -i lowmem
[ 0.000000] 256MB LOWMEM available.
[ 336.956158] lowmem : 0xc0000000 - 0xd0000000 ( 256 MB)

and the test in the 2.6.24 kernel that is failing is pretty simple, being:

                unsigned long end_of_lowmem = max_low_pfn << PAGE_SHIFT;

                if (ramdisk_end <= end_of_lowmem) {
                        reserve_bootmem(ramdisk_image, ramdisk_size);
                        initrd_start = ramdisk_image + PAGE_OFFSET;
                        initrd_end = initrd_start+ramdisk_size;
                } else {
                        printk(KERN_ERR "initrd extends beyond end of memory "
                               "(0x%08lx > 0x%08lx)\ndisabling initrd\n",
                               ramdisk_end, end_of_lowmem);
                        initrd_start = 0;
                }

So for the test to fail the Hardy kernel must get end_of_lowmem wrong.

The test is not functionally different from 2.6.22 (just cleaned up a bit) so it is unlikely that is the issue.

I have already purged and reinstalled the kernel (which recreated the initrd) and reinstalled grub, just in case. Also debsums doesn't show anything unusual.