Date: Mon, 29 Oct 2001 23:45:21 +0100 From: "Anthony Atkielski" <anthony@atkielski.com> To: <questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Tiny starter configuration for FreeBSD Message-ID: <006101c160cb$6619f7d0$0a00000a@contactdish> References: <00a301c1606e$bc00e990$0a00000a@contactdish> <20011029134404.A92609@roman.mobil.cz>
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> Solaris is free for use on up to 8-CPU > machines AFAIK. I thought Solaris was a proprietary flavor of UNIX sold commercially by Sun, and only available for Sun-supported platforms (??). In any case, Solaris smacks of proprietary software, and I'm really not in a frame of mind to lock myself to yet another vendor. FreeBSD doesn't seem to be linked to any company, and it seems to run pretty well, and it appears to be pretty complete, so I figured I'd go with that. > This config will be more than enough (I'd go > for maybe a slower CPU, but more RAM). Much more > important is making sure that the hardware > you choose is supported. See release notes. I am constrained a bit by what's available. I saw a nice, cheap AMD 900 MHz system today, with 128 MB RAM, and a 20 GB disk, for about $500 for the system unit only (it would cost about half that much in the U.S., I suspect). I don't want to cobble something together myself as that would just take too much time (I'm not a great fan of fooling around with hardware), so I'm looking for a ready-made machine at the very bottom end of the spectrum--given that even the tiniest machines today should run any flavor of UNIX with horsepower to spare. Heck, according to the Wind River CD set I bought today (FreeBSD 4.3), all of FreeBSD will run in 16 MB ... which is about the same amout of RAM required by Internet Explorer! One concern I have is booting and installing. All the machines I've looked at have DVD drives in them; nobody seems to be providing plain old CD-ROM drives any more. Is it possible for a machine to boot from a CD in a DVD drive? If so, can I install directly from the CDs that way? The Wind River CD set documentation is not clear on whether or not the four CDs contain everything to boot and install FreeBSD on a single machine from scratch--does anyone know? This is 4.3, dated April 2001, and there are four CDs in the jewel case, plus a little brochure. I need some assurances on this before I try to buy a machine, although I should think (and I hope) that just about any new machine should be able to boot from a CD these days (or from a CD in a DVD drive--right?). Note that creating a bootable floppy would be a problem, as my only other machine is Windows NT, with no MS-DOS in sight, and I don't even remember if I can create a bootable DOS floppy from within NT. Most of the configurations I've seen have junk like speakers and CD burners and fancy sound cards and stuff that I really couldn't care less about, but I assume that if I don't plan to use them, having them on the machine isn't going to bother FreeBSD (?). In contrast--and this is equally irritating--all these machines seem to have a cheap modem (useless to me), but no network card. So I'll have to buy a nice 10/100 Ethernet card, but at least those are cheap (even a 3Com full-duplex 10/100 card isn't very expensive). I'm going to see if I can find a place that has keyboard switches so that I can use one keyboard for two machines (mainly out of space limitations, not budget limitations), and I'm going to try to get a tiny flat-panel display for the new machine (more expensive, but again it saves space on my crowded desk). I think I can skip a mouse for now, and in any case I have mice lying around all over here (plus a couple of extra keyboards, for that matter). Still another question: Most of these configurations come with Windows, whether you want it or not. Step 1 for me is to blast the disk clean, then. Will the installation for FreeBSD give me the option of deleting all partitions and starting with a completely empty disk, or will a preexisting Windows installation pose a problem? Also, will FreeBSD let me use an entire 20 GB disk as a single partition, or at least let me get past the old constraints that Windows had on partition size? I wanted to get SCSI disks, but that would exceed my budget. I guess for the the use I have in mind (no real production on the machine), I don't need the fastest disks around. > I know nothing about Walnut Creek, sorry. I was mistaken; this is Wind River, not Walnut Creek. It would be nice if every other technology company were not named after some campsite in the Pacific Northwest--it's confusing. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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