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Date:      Sun, 27 Aug 2006 18:01:22 -0500
From:      "Nikolas Britton" <nikolas.britton@gmail.com>
To:        "hackmiester (Hunter Fuller)" <hackmiester@hackmiester.com>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: Proof of concept box with 8mB RAM
Message-ID:  <ef10de9a0608271601l22ef751bkc2623284d7ea7d7e@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <5584A99D-CB53-45D8-B552-BFF89A01E9C8@hackmiester.com>
References:  <5584A99D-CB53-45D8-B552-BFF89A01E9C8@hackmiester.com>

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On 8/27/06, hackmiester (Hunter Fuller) <hackmiester@hackmiester.com> wrote:
> Everyone will laugh at this, but I have an old box with a 25mHz
> processor or so. It has 8mB of memory. I want to install some type of
> UNIX clone on it, as a proof of concept. I don't care if it's linux,
> freebsd, or something else, but I need something that will run with
> enough speed to run an sshd and not much else. It will just be to
> prove that old hardware can still be used. Any suggestions?
> _______________________________________________

That box doesn't have enough memory to run a current version of
FreeBSD or Linux. Also what CPU does it use? FreeBSD 6.x, and I'm sure
Linux 2.6, removed 386 support. You need a 486 or better to run the
current version of FreeBSD. Does this box have a math coprocessor?

The "recommended" minimum requirements to run FreeBSD 6.1 is a Pentium
MMX, or equivalent, with 32MB of system ram. You can get by with less
but you won't like the results if you plan to use it as a workstation.
Use FreeBSD 4.11-STABLE or 5.5-STABLE for anything less then that.

I did some tests on disk space and memory requirements back in January
with FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE. Nobody seemed to notice the first time so
I'll post it again:

Test Rig:
VMware 5 (Win2K/NTFS), VM Settings:
32MB RAM
64MB RAM For KDE-Lite Install (failed with 32MB)
128MB RAM For GNOME-Lite Install (failed with 64MB)
4GB Hard Drive (Default settings)
CD-ROM (Pointing to FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE i386 ISO Images)
No USB, No Audio, No LAN

FreeBSD Disk Layout:
ad0s1a  4095MB  /       ufs2
ad0s1b  null    swap    null
ad0s1d  null    /var    null
ad0s1e  null    /tmp    null
ad0s1f  null    /usr    null

Everything (/tmp, /var, and /usr) is setup on the root partition, no
swap partition was setup.

Results:
* 1st column of numbers are from the VM disk image file.
* 2nd column is from inside FreeBSD with "du -m".
* All numbers reported in megabytes.

Distribution Sets:
Developer               918     741
X-Developer             1080    882
Kern-Developer          526     427
X-Kern-Developer        690     568
User                    393     319
X-User                  560     461
Minimal                 183     156

Extrapolated Results:
Ports System            283     270
GNOME-Lite              688     655
KDE-Lite                879     864
X.Org Default Install   164     143
X.Org Full Install      177     158
Linux Binary Compat.    255     127
Sys Sources + Proflibs  392     315
Kern Sources + Proflibs 133     109

Miscellaneous Sets:
X-User (All X.Org)      572     476
X-User + GNOME-Lite     1247    1115
X-User + KDE-Lite       1438    1323
Minimal + Ports System  466     425
Minimal + Linux Compat. 438     282

-- 
BSD Podcasts @:
http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/
http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/



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