Date: Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:02:46 +0100 (CET) From: Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de> To: freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG, deeptech71@gmail.com Subject: Re: what can i do with a 486? Message-ID: <200701180802.l0I82khi017603@lurza.secnetix.de> In-Reply-To: <45AEA14C.8000305@gmail.com>
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deeptech71@gmail.com wrote: > Can you install FreeBSD on a 486 machine? Yes, certainly. You shouldn't expect it to be lightning fast, though, of course. But it will be perfectly fine for a number of uses. For example, I used to have a 486 as my printer spooler, TFTP boot server and BBS (with an analogue modem) for years. It is also sufficient e.g. as a router and firewall for a modem uplink. However, there are some things to keep in mind: First, you don't want to compile source code on such a machine. It just takes too long. Either download precompiled packages, or compile the sources on a faster machine and then copy them over. Second: Usually such old machines only support PIO modes for disk access, i.e. it's _slow_ and puts a burden on the already slow processor. In other words: You don't want to run things on the machine that require heavy disk access. (Unless, of course, you happen to have a 486 mainboard with PCI slots so you could plug in a DMA-capable disk controller.) And finally, such old hardware usually has a very limited amount of physical memory (RAM). Paging or swapping to disk isn't exactly desirable either (see the remark about PIO modes above). Therefore two things are recommended: First, plug in as much RAM as the board can handle (you can get old SIMM modules on eBay), and second, compile a reduced kernel that contains only the things that you really need. Manual tuning of various parameters (e.g. maxusers) instead of relying on automatic settings might also be worth a try. Use "-Os -fno-strict-aliasing" as your CFLAGS and COPTFLAGS for compiling to reduce code size. If you need to compile things on the 486 itself, do not use the default "-pipe" option. There are more things you can do to save memory; a quick search on Google or freebsd.rambler.ru should give some results. By the way, you should still configure a reasonable amount of swap space, even though it is desirable that it will not be used. With some swap space, the machine will be able to handle situations where it runs out of RAM, even though it will crawl during that time. Without swap space, the machine will crash when it runs out of RAM. Another note: To install the machine with sysinstall (i.e. from a standard installation CD), a minimum amount of RAM is required (I think 24 or 32 MB); the Handbook doesn't seem to be up-to-date on this matter). If you don't have that much RAM, you either need to prepare a special CD for installation without sysinstall, or temporarily put your hard disk in another machine with more RAM for installation. Once the system is installed, it will run with less RAM (the above mentioned requirement only applies to the sysinstall program). By the way, I replaced my 486 with newer hardware only for the reason of energy efficiency, because a 486 isn't really energy-saving. My new machine (a VIA EPIA board with C3 processor) doesn't only use less power, it's also a lot faster, supports DMA for disks and has more RAM, saving me significant amounts of time and troubles. Unless you have some historical interest in that 486 machine, I recommend you replace it with something better, too. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "Life is short (You need Python)" -- Bruce Eckel, ANSI C++ Comitee member, author of "Thinking in C++" and "Thinking in Java"
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