"Tomeh, Husam" <htomeh(at)firstam(dot)com> writes:
> I just installed postgres 8.1.1 on a dual optron Linux box running Linux
> 4 advanced server, with 32GB of RAM and 2GB of swap.
> I'm trying to allocate 24 GB as shared_bufferes. I'm getting an error
> that I can not allocate memory (see below).
While this doesn't answer your question: why are you trying to do that?
AFAIK there is no evidence whatever that that's a good idea. Try
measuring performance at, say, 1Gb, 8Gb, 16Gb of shared buffers and see
where the trend is going before you waste a lot of time fixing the kernel
parameters.
regards, tom lane