From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Wed Apr  6 14:37:39 2005
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125])
	by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 91EF716A4D0
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  6 Apr 2005 14:37:39 +0000 (GMT)
Received: from ns1.tiadon.com (SMTP.tiadon.com [69.27.132.161])
	by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DDDA543D31
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Wed,  6 Apr 2005 14:37:38 +0000 (GMT)	(envelope-from kdk@daleco.biz)
Received: from [69.27.131.0] ([69.27.131.0]) by ns1.tiadon.com with Microsoft
	SMTPSVC(6.0.3790.211);	 Wed, 6 Apr 2005 09:40:09 -0500
Message-ID: <4253F42F.5010105@daleco.biz>
Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 09:37:35 -0500
From: Kevin Kinsey <kdk@daleco.biz>
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.3) Gecko/20041210
X-Accept-Language: en-us, en
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: Michael Lednev <freebsd-maillists@vibrators.ru>
References: <opsos56oa0rokg8m@a2-6.melbpc.org.au>
	<20050406113401.GA33178@falcon.midgard.homeip.net>
	<op.sos61itcuxkvrk@asu-reaper>
	<20050406122721.GA33679@falcon.midgard.homeip.net>
	<op.sos9oygduxkvrk@asu-reaper>
In-Reply-To: <op.sos9oygduxkvrk@asu-reaper>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=KOI8-R; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-OriginalArrivalTime: 06 Apr 2005 14:40:10.0538 (UTC)
	FILETIME=[88E958A0:01C53AB6]
cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: difficulty installing 5.3-R i386
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>,
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2005 14:37:39 -0000

Michael Lednev wrote:

> On Wed, 06 Apr 2005 16:27:21 +0400, Erik Trulsson 
> <ertr1013@student.uu.se>  wrote:
>
>> Yes, that is normal.  After installation you have got a swap configured
>> and the system can use it if the physical RAM is not sufficient.
>> During installation you do not have any swap available and therefore
>> the RAM must be large enough to fit everything in it at once.
>>
>> If you really wanted to you could almost certainly *run* (but not
>> install) 5.3 with only 8 MB RAM (at least if you had a customized
>> kernel) but I wouldn't recommend it.
>
>
> that's not completely true. when i ran install on 16 mb system 
> rebooted at
> boot loader start (i didn't saw beastie :) ), and after install it 
> loads ok
>

I think you misunderstood.  In order to get sysinstall and the kernel from
the install floppies up, modules and all, you need greater than 16MB system
RAM.  The Doc team was in the process of addressing this in the 
documentation
recently, but I've not read the update doc yet, so I don't know if it's 
been done.*

Erik's point is that an *installed* system could be slimmed down to the 
point
of possibly working with 8MB system RAM by configuring and building a
very tiny *custom* kernel.  I'm not sure really who'd want to do that 
... perhaps
for some type of embedded system?

Anyway, if the docs haven't been updated, it needs to be known that you need
more than 16MB RAM to run the FreeBSD installer for versions >= 5.3-RELEASE.

For reference, see PR docs/77304.

Kevin Kinsey

* Looks like it has, see bmah's commit note ref: same PR...