Free RAM Slots? (Dmidecode lies!)

[gentoostu]

Hello All,

I am currently trying to script a distribution independent way of determining the number of used and free RAM slots in server/desktop systems. I have been using dmidecode as this appears to be in most distributions that I have come across, however I noticed a problem recently. When I swapped out two 2GB modules of RAM for four x 1GB RAM modules I tested that all modules were being recognised using dmidecode. The problem is that dmidecode still showed 4 x 2GB of ram instead of 2 x 2GB and 4 x 1GB. This of course means I need to find an alternative way of getting the RAM slot usage from linux machines - that doesn't suffer from this problem.

I'm hoping there is something I have missed about dmidecode or that there is a better option such as probing /proc or /sys but any suggestions are welcome. Please note that I would ideally like this to be distribution independent so things such as hwinfo (from SuSE) are not as desirable.

Cheers,

[JohnT]

From the homepage....

Beware that DMI data have proven to be too unreliable to be blindly trusted. Dmidecode does not scan your hardware, it only reports what the BIOS told it to.

http://www.nongnu.org/dmidecode/

[deathadder]

lshw will do it for you. See Linux Format

[EDIT]
Remember Google is your friend