Date: Thu, 06 Dec 2001 07:42:10 -0800 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Leo Bicknell <bicknell@ufp.org> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Can TCP changes be put in RELENG_4? Message-ID: <3C0F91D2.326B2873@mindspring.com> References: <20011205085750.I28101-100000@coredump.scriptkiddie.org> <200112052142.fB5LgVM53167@apollo.backplane.com> <3C0EF953.54CF24DB@mindspring.com> <3C0F0803.7010506@viasoft.com.cn> <3C0F0D02.8AEA9E48@mindspring.com> <20011206081059.A58740@ussenterprise.ufp.org> <3C0F7F63.90B753F3@mindspring.com> <20011206094209.A60489@ussenterprise.ufp.org>
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Leo Bicknell wrote: > Would result in what machines not booting? As long as a 64M PC > can boot (even if it has only 10 Meg free for user apps) that's ok > in my book. If we're still trying to boot on 4, 8, or 16 meg > machines that's just dumb. Ugh, save me from the Novell decision that lost UNIX the desktop market! > As I've said before, there are two types of FreeBSD users. There > are "users", who want something to replace windows and who really > like the Linux distro's with KDE and all that. These people are > unlikely to build a kernel, and as time goes by are even less likely > to know what a kernel is. They are also likely to have a < 3 year > old PC, probably that they are dual booting. Linux recognized this, > and targest this sort of hardware out-of-the-box. If they are dual booting, then either they are clued enough to repartition their disk (ala "Partition Magic"), or they have installed a second disk on the machine. Either one is an argument that they are clued enough to build a kernel, and even if they aren't, are willing to go to extra effort to run the software. I would be much more in favor of targeting large server users with any changes that you want to make, and even then, I don't see orphaning small meory systems. In fact, with the drivers being mostly modular, I see a time when "GENERIC" will contain only the boot devices, and load the rest of the drivers as modules, and we might see 8M machines make a comeback (or even 4M, the RAM disk gods willing). > The second type of user is someone like you, or me, or most of the > people on this list. They will build a custom kernel no matter > how appropriate the default settings. They will tune things for > odd application boxes, like IRC and News servers and the like. > The defaults are virtually irrevelant for these people, provided > sysinstall can finish. This is a big "if". Installation is the main barrier to entry for FreeBSD these days, IMO, and it needs to work if it can, and not fail because of a bad default. > As far as I'm concerned any machine with < 64M these days falls > into the second catagory, where someone should have to futz with > it to make it work. When 256M DIMMs are $18 we need to get with > the program. I still think that most first time installations are on old hardware that has outlived its usefulness as a Microsoft platform, as Windows has moved upmarket on the hardware it is willing to run on. (NBL This is quickly turning into something that should be on -advocacy, not -hackers). > This is one area where Microsoft got it right. Worrying about the > hardware isn't worth your time. It will continue to grow at moores > law, making the bloat unimportant. Target what's being sold now, > as if you target last years computers by the time your OS is on > them next year they will be retired. Microsoft got it wrong here. The problem is that Microsoft engineers get the new toys before the consumers do, so when the software is written, there's no incentive to make it run in a smaller footprint (disk, RAM, whatever). I would be sorely tempted to restrict all the Microsoft engineers to 1 year old machines, for everything but compiling, so that they could feel their customer's pain. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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