From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Sun Sep 11 05:23:33 2011 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E2D96106564A for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 05:23:32 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 90CFF8FC1B for ; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 05:23:32 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-14-151.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.14.151]) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTP id 00D933E5FD; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:23:30 +0200 (CEST) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id p8B5NU8J002602; Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:23:30 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 07:23:30 +0200 From: Polytropon To: "Thomas Mueller" Message-Id: <20110911072330.8906bdfa.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <0LzIOX-1RGENc1Hub-0140FM@mx.kundenserver.de> References: <0LzIOX-1RGENc1Hub-0140FM@mx.kundenserver.de> Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: get rel 9.0 iso X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list Reply-To: Polytropon List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 11 Sep 2011 05:23:33 -0000 On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 04:11:26 +0000 (GMT), Thomas Mueller wrote: > To build FreeBSD 9.0 on USB stick for the old computer, host > computer would be new amd64, cross-compiling for i386. Yes, in this case you would need to cross-compile. > I see default /var partition size for new FreeBSD installations > was to be 4 GB, so I might be safer with 16 GB rather than 8 GB > USB stick, even though there would be no need to install system > source and ports tree on the USB stick. Those would have been installed on the /usr partition, not on /var. I think 8 GB might be a quite huge partition, but that will depend on what you intend to use your server for. In some cases /var won't get bigger than 1 GB, on other cases it might fill up quite quickly. % df -h /var Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on /dev/ad4s1e 989M 133M 776M 15% /var This is an example from my home system - you can see that /var is hardly used. > But I had already decided that I was not going to have > separate partitions for /tmp, /var and /usr, but would > want a separate partition for /home, except possibly > on a USB stick. That's a good idea, so you can get rid of partition size calculations. But note that some temporary process might fill /tmp and therefore affect the _whole_ partition that also contains /usr. But maybe that won't be a problem as you put /home somewhere else. > Now it looks like FreeBSD 9.0-to-be is pushing the idea > of installing on GPT; even the memstick installation disk, > where traditional MBR partitioning scheme would fit > comfortably, uses GPT. You can easily apply GTP partitions for the same purpose, e. g. da0p1 for / (including /tmp, /var and /usr subtrees) and da0p2 for /home if you want them on _one_ media - or put da0p1 covering the whole stick to be mounted as /, and da1p1 (second USB media) for /home. > I could build one kernel that would support the hardware > on both computers, or one kernel for each computer. One for each, as you probably will use AMD64 kernel on the "bigger" machine. But you still _can_ use i386 on both of them except you intendedly _require_ AMD64 functionality on the "bigger" machine. > FreeBSD itself can run comfortably in well under 256 MB RAM. Yes, the OS has no problem booting fast even on such limited hardware. > Resource hogs are the big applications: KDE, GNOME, bigger > web browsers, multimedia, Adobe Flash Player, printers. Uhm... printers??? Oh, maybe CUPS, yes. :-) You can _still_ build workstation systems on limited hardware, but you have to be _very_ picky about the applications you use. For example, I have a 300 MHz P2 workstation that runs XFCE 3, Opera 8, mplayer (compiled because of getting the best optimization!), OpenOffice 2, xmms and LaTeX. This system runs well and is still quite usable. > Servers, not needing all the fancy stuff, can be set up on > old computers as long as they're in good condition. I completely agree, as I'm following this philosophy myself. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...