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Date:      Tue, 11 Sep 2001 09:44:40 +0300
From:      <midiostri@in.gr>
To:        "Erik Trulsson" <ertr1013@student.uu.se>
Cc:        <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:   RE: 486
Message-ID:  <2104101c13a8d$3b99a7d0$0205030a@internal.ramnet.gr>

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Hi Erik and thanks for replying..

I feared so, but I thought I'd ask to hear the oppinion of someone who =
knows more about it..

Mainly because I thought that if MS has graphical software that runs =
smoothly on such a minimum pc then maybe freebsd can do it too..

Anyway. It seems that this one will remain Win3.1

Thanks again :)
Dimitri



-----Original Message-----
From:	"Erik Trulsson" <ertr1013@student.uu.se>
Sent:	Monday, September 10, 2001 3:27 PM
To:	"midiostri@in.gr" <midiostri@in.gr>
Cc:	"questions@freebsd.org" <questions@freebsd.org>
Subject:	Re: 486

On Mon, Sep 10, 2001 at 05:06:16PM +0300, midiostri@in.gr wrote:
> Hi,
>=20
> I have an old 486 DX2, 8 Mb RAM, 80 Mb hard disk.=20
> It runs Windows 3.1
>=20
> I'm thinking of converting it to FreeBSD but lot's of questions =
arise..
> For example, should i use the latest version or some older one?

The newer FreeBSD versions (from 3.4 (or maybe 3.3) onwards) require
more than 8 MB RAM to install. So to install FreeBSD you would either =
have
to get more memory or install an older version.
(You can run the newer versions with only 8 MB RAM but not install.)

> And is there any chance to run Xserver on it?
>=20
> As u understand, I'd like to keep it graphical --together with some
> descent, graphical applications (internet browser, text processor and
> the like..)--

You won't be able to fit FreeBSD + X + Webbrowser on the disk.
FreeBSD itself needs about 100 MB for a semi-complete installation.
To get X + some applications also I don't think you can get away with
less than 200 MB disk. I wouldn't recommend running with less than
500MB to have some space for your own documents and some spare space.

Also, with only 8 MB RAM things will be slow. You can run X + Netscape
on 8 MB RAM (I have done it) but it will be slow. Very slow.

When running graphical applications I wouldn't recommend anything less
than 32MB. More is nicer.

To sum it up: If you want to install FreeBSD on that computer and use
it as a general purpose machine (as opposed to a machine that only does
one thing, for example runs a firewall) you need to get a bigger disk.
(Hard disks are dirt cheap today so that shouldn't be a big problem.)

If you want to run graphical applications and don't want unacceptably
slow performance you also need to increase the amount of RAM. At least
to 16 MB and preferably to 32MB or more.
(Memory is not quite as cheap as disk, especially not for an older
machine like this which probably uses 72-pin or maybe even 30-pin =
SIMMs.)



--=20
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013@student.uu.se

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