SLES 11 SP2 fails to install on PowerPC architecture with Terabytes of memory present

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 Service Pack 2

Situation

Customers with large memory configurations (TBs of memory) may encounter the
following BUG() message on boot or at install time of an LPAR on Power:

kernel BUG at
/usr/src/packages/BUILD/kernel-ppc64-3.0.13/linux-3.0/mm/bootmem.c:485!

Resolution

If this is encountered, the recommendation is to re-configure the LPAR  and install (if necessary)
with less memory, for instance, 64GB.

A fixed kernel version had been released in April 2012.

After updating the kernel to 3.0.26-0.7.6 or later, the LPAR can be configured back to full memory access.

Additional Information

Disclaimer

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