Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 15:51:22 -0500 From: "Steve Friedrich" <SteveFriedrich@Hot-Shot.com> To: "questions@FreeBSD.ORG" <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, "Tom Morris" <morris-tim@pavilion.co.uk> Subject: Re: newbie: A bit more OAST Express Message-ID: <199812152054.PAA24674@laker.net>
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On Mon, 14 Dec 1998 19:09:19 +0000, Tom Morris wrote: >i need to set up this oast express by friday, but i cant get myself >a pentium, only a 486 with 16mb ram, 1 gig-ish hdd. is this enough >to run fbsd on. > >- How much swap do I need to set? >- How easy is it to set up FBSD on a 486? I don't remember your original post, but below I've copied a recent response I had to someone regarding using a 486. The amount of swap you need depends on what you're goind to do, but you can always increase it later by adding another disk and creating a larger swap partition. You should save a hundred MB on your current drive as free space and try this BEFORE you need it ASAP. Get thru the learning curve before you have too much to lose... I'm running FreeBSD 2.2.8 on an AMD 486DX-66 and it's pretty cool, but see below for more details... On Tue, 15 Dec 1998 11:40:15 -0600, Gerry Marcelo wrote: >i486sx25 overclocked to 33 (chipset escapes me right now) >8megs of ram >Trident 8900D video card with 1mg ram >OAS brand SVGA monitor > >I believe the above equipment will allow an install (5meg minimum, >correct?), but how much ram should I really have to allow me to learn the >following: >1. How to use the OS, it's filesystem and basic operation >2. Experiment with Xwindows >3. Install and become familiar with Apache/FP98 Extentions This equipment easily satisfies item 1. In my not-so-humble opinion, Xwindows will be painfully slow on this machine. I have an AMD 468DX-66 running FreeBSD 2.2.8 (I'm tracking -stable branch) and running Xwindows is not too terribly painful, but I prefer Xwindows on any Pentium (or Pentium class, such as *AMD K6*) faster than 200MHz. It will be fast enough to just experiment, but I don't think it will be fast enough to get any work done, and even experimenting will get tiresome. It will be probably fast enough to experiment with Apache, but not with very many clients. My shopping list for a production machine would be: 1. An AMD-K6 (200 MHz or above, K6-2 is ok) or a Celeron 300A (the A version has cache and *may* be overclocked successfully, if you get one that Intel hasn't *clock-locked*. I'd get an AGP capable motherboard. 2. As much memory as you can afford (With a web server and/or Xwindows, you'll have a *lot* of processes, you don't want to swap any more than you have to, and memory is pretty damn cheap these days) 3. At least an 8GB hard drive, I know people run with less, but IDE disks are cheaper than *dirt*, don't waste your time 4. For Xwindows, the S3 based cards are the best supported, but I'd personally go with the recent Matrox G200. See http://www.XFree86.org for more info. Read their docs, especially the READMEs for each card. I'd get an AGP card. I'm running XFree86 3.3.3 on my 486-66 using a fairly old Hercules Dynamite Pro 2MB VL-Bus video board and I can't get past 1024x768 @ 256 colors (I have a crappy monitor on this machine, my only *great* monitor is still tied to my WindowsNT-OS/2 box and I can't yet pull it). If you shop for a monitor, be sure and get one that's DDC compliant. I don't know if XFree86 supports DDC compliant devices, but a monitor is a long term investment, and all the other OSes know DDC, which lets the video board *ask* your monitor what resolutions/refresh rates it supports, which prevents you from blowing it up by selecting something it can't handle. When you shop around for motherboards (or systems, but I personally stick with industry standard motherboards and cases, I'll explain below), you'll notice a price/performance *sweet spot*, that is, say for example the following prices are found (these are not current prices, they're ficticious, just to explain my point): Pentium II 450Mhz for $550 price/perf ratio of 1.2222 Pentium II 400Mhz for $425 price/perf ratio of 1.0625 Pentium II 300Mhz* for $250 price/perf ratio of 0.8333 *(I don't know if they actually made a 300MHz P2 or not, but that's entirely besides the point) Note the *premium* for the 450MHz model. Divide the price by the MHz and you get an idea of the price/performance for that *family*. Note that you cannot use this price/Mhz method to compare ratios between processor families, because they have internal architectural differences that aren't taken into consideration with this method. Take some current price points for P2's and plot these ratios with a spreadsheet's graphing capability. You'll see where the *curve* takes a wicked turn. I avoid the fastest CPU that's currently available because you have to pay a *big* premium to get it. Buy last years hot CPU and you'll get it *really* cheap. Spend the money you save on more memory. The reason I avoid pre-built systems, like from Compaq, IBM, etc. is because they create custom cases and motherboards. If you end up hating the motherboard that came with it, where do you think you would have to go to get another motherboard that will fit in that case?? And do you think it will be a bargain??. If I buy an industry standard motherboard from ASUS or somebody and I don't like it, I can take the CPU off it and buy another motherboard, sans CPU for around $100. Kiss compatibility issues good-bye for $100, I love it. Ditto on the case. Buy a $37 case now, and later get a tower case for $100, and the motherboard actually fits!! This is what standards are *supposed* to do for consumers. Make the industry use standards. Can you imagine buying toys or appliances and having to buy custom-sized batteries, etc. Screw that. Hope this long winded diatribe helps... Steve Friedrich Viva la FreeBSD!! Unix systems measure "uptime" in years, Winblows measures it in minutes. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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