From: Hakan Koseoglu <hakan at koseoglu.org> > > In the past, I heard that these 700MB were normally reserved for bios or >chipset > It still is, even with with 64 bit. If your motherboard supports > remapping this memory with 64 bit you can use the whole 4GB. Otherwise > you're limited to 3.2: > > hakan at photon:~$ free -m > total used free shared buffers cached > Mem: 3262 1972 1290 0 103 737 > -/+ buffers/cache: 1131 2131 > Swap: 7812 308 7504 > hakan at photon:~$ arch > x86_64 Thx for all the answers. As a matter of fact, while my Dell Vostro 410 was getting 3.3GB without PAE, a new Vostro 430 was getting only 3GB (but a full 4GB in PAE)... I went anyway for the non PAE just for peace of mind and because 3GB is still plenty. Thx, JD