HassOS + 0.98.0: why I get the same free RAM on 2GB and 4GB Raspberry 4?

[PieBru]

Hi all,
I’m trying HassOS on my shining new Raspi4B.
Swapping the same HassOS SD (HA 0.98.0) on a 2GB and a 4GB models, both the systemmonitor sensor and the free ssh command gives the same amount of free RAM.

After updating from yesterday’s 0.97.2 to 0.98.0, at 11 AM I swapped the HassOS SD:

This is the 4GB free command output, the SSH+WEB addon is running with protection mode disabled:

This may be the docker-effect, but is there a way to show and monitor the REAL free RAM on HassOS?

Thanks all,
Piero

[PieBru]

More info.
hassio ha stats and top show even more confusing values:

[tom_l]

The hassio images for the pi 3b and 4 are different. By swapping the SD card you are running the 3b image on the 4.

The 3b only has 2GB 1GB of RAM. Your system is only using 2GB 1GB of RAM on your pi 4 because that’s all the 3b image was set up to use.

Re-image the card (with the pi4 image) and restore a snapshot to take advantage of the full resources available.

[HypnoToad]

The 3b only has 2GB of RAM. Your system is only using 2GB of RAM on your pi 4 because that’s all the 3b image was set up to use.

I thought the 3b had 1GB of RAM?

Regardless, he may need the latest RPI firmware in order to use all the RAM.

@PieBru I recommend trying the latest Raspbian OS with another SD card and see how much ram it shows then.

For my 3b I get this

$ free
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:         948304      177824      236084       41868      534396      663244
Swap:        102396           0      102396

[tom_l]

Yeah you’re right, it’s 1GB.

[HypnoToad]

Np, even 1GB is plenty for HA usually.

@PieBru try the latest Raspbian on another SD card and see how much memory show up then.

[tom_l]

So that means @PieBru must have two pi4s and is swapping between the 2GB and a 4GB models. If so, and he’s using the pi 4 image, I have no answer to his question.

[PieBru]

Yes @tom_l , I did not use any 3B, sorry if I didn’t explain clearly.

1. Yesterday I eched the latest PI4 HassOS version, the “recommended” Raspberry Pi 4 Model B 32bit image, freshly downloaded yesterday afternoon, on a single16 GB SD, which showed still having 0.97.2 onboard.
2. I used this SD on a PI4 2GB, which showed 950MB RAM total, both using ssh free and systemmonitor sensor.
3. Today I updated this SD to the 0.98.0, meanwhile released overnight (Italy time), and inserted this SD on a PI4 4GB.
4. On the PI4 4GB free shows the same RAM amount: 950MB, thus this post.
5. On the PI4 4GB, even cat /proc/meminfo executed in a HassOS ssh session coherently shows MemTotal: 945036kB

BTW with Arch, Raspbian and other 32bit OSs, the two above mentioned PI4 show the correct RAM amount: 2GB the first PI4 and 4GB the second PI4.
Is the 1GB a HassOS or a docker limit?

Sorry for my engrish
Thanks,
Piero

[PieBru]

Update.

I just tryed on the exact same PI4 4GB used fore the above HassOS tests, using another buildroot-based PI4 distro: MotionEyeOS

MotionEyeOS shows the correct values, so I think it may be a specific buildroot kernel config or a docker config issue.

BTW, as you can see, on the same PI4 vcgencmd shows the wrong values, so there is still something messy on the PI4 OS/software side.

AFAIK HassOS doesn’t include vcgencmd

Piero