When I have 6 GB of RAM installed, why is just 3 GB available on Ubuntu?

Posted by user842225 on Ask Ubuntu See other posts from Ask Ubuntu or by user842225
Published on 2012-01-18T15:26:40Z Indexed on 2012/06/10 16:48 UTC
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I'm using a laptop with 32-bit Ubuntu 10.04.

I used to have only 2 GB of RAM. Today, our IT-support upgraded my laptop to a total of 6 GB of RAM. They told me "Though you do now have 6 GB, when you use your current Ubuntu, you'll only have 3 GB available. You have to install the latest version of 64-bit Ubuntu to enable all of the 6 GB."

He was in a hurry to leave without explaining more. I turned on my laptop, used gnome-system-monitor to check, and as he said, it shows I only have 3 GB of RAM.

Could someone explain me why? Why do I have just 3 GB available, and why installing a 64-bit version makes all of the 6 GB available?

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