How to mount +4G RAM as drive on 32 bit os

Ask Fedora
,
1

I’m an engineer. It seems to me that a 32 bit linux OS should be able to load + 4GB ram as a regular mount point ram drive.

I’ve had a hard time finding an answer to this. Russian bots I guess.

Why not?

2

It should not be a problem with a CPU, motherboard and an OS that supports PAE (which is usually the case today [except Fedora stopped to distribute 32 bits version since F31]):

3

There is no 32 bit Fedora OS anymore (and there is no PAE kernel in Fedora).

4

Taking a look at Fedora archives… the most recent 32 bit iso of Fedora I found is for Fedora 25 released in november 2016:
Index of /pub/archive/fedora/linux/releases/25/Workstation/i386/iso I don’t know if it was supporting PAE.

I would probably go for Antix if I wanted a 32 bit Linux today:
https://antixlinux.com/

The Antix-FAQ says: What kernel is antiX-19 using?
A customised 4.9.193 version.

There are several other kernels available via the *package-installer* application. Such as:

* custom-4.19.73 for 32 and 64 bit processors, pae and non-pae for stable/buster, testing and sid.
* custom-5.2.15 for 32 and 64 bit processors, pae and non-pae for stable/buster, testing and sid.

Linux Mint still supports 32 bits too.

5

I was just thinking of hooking it up like standard USB ram

The only difference being the improved ram transfer rate.

Having a ram drive would allow me to use my cpus which are ALL stuck on io-waits.

It’s a fink job.