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Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!usenet.ucs.indiana.edu!bigbang.astro.indiana.edu!pitts From: pitts@bigbang.astro.indiana.edu (Jim Pitts) Subject: Re: How big is a full installation of NetBSD? Message-ID: <CDpKsD.76v@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu> Sender: news@usenet.ucs.indiana.edu (USENET News System) Nntp-Posting-Host: bigbang.astro.indiana.edu Organization: Indiana University Astrophysics, Bloomington, IN References: <27mgfv$8a3@csc2.anu.edu.au> Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1993 14:41:00 GMT Lines: 78 In article <27mgfv$8a3@csc2.anu.edu.au> kpw105@huxley.anu.edu.au (Ken Wessen) writes: >How much disk space is required for a full installation of NetBSD - including X windows , all the standard utilities and compilers etc I assume you also want the OS source code as well. This is part of the standard distribution. About 170 MB + swap space (I use 20 MB). So just under 200 MB is a nice round figure. I use a 300 MB disk as my system disk, since I want to have such good toys as emacs, netrek, gopher, xv, xfig, etc. This uses up lots of disk space as well. >How much RAM is required to satisfactorily run X windows? Well, the quoted figure is 4 MB. I refused to believe this figure. How can you run an X11R5 system n 4 MB of memory ... so ... I ripped out 4MB of ram from my machine (I have nothing better to do with my time). The result was a 4 MB X11R5 system. Yes, it worked. No, I don't ever want to do that again. So I would suggest 4 MB to be the true minimum and 8 MB to be the realistic minimum. Of course, X applications are memory hogs, so honestly you can NEVER have enough memory as far as they are concerned. >Does the standard distribution include TeX? SCCS? I know TeX is supported (it was with 386BSD 0.1) although I avoid it like the plague. I do now know about SCCS. The standard distribution of NetBSD does not come with TeX. I don't think it comes with SCCS as well. The TeX software should be on agate.berkeley.edu, but don't quote me on that. That is where you should get the BSD386 0.1 distributions. In the unofficial treee are all the applications that people have claimed to have ported. Most of these should work and I think TeX is among them. Here is one problem that people like myself run into: The install 386BSD 0.1 and all the patches (when they are drunk). This includes the 'etc' distribution that has tons of good stuff in it (and TeX as well). None of this stuff is in the standard distribution of NetBSD 0.9. So, when you wise up and convert over your system all your good toys go away ... Fortunately I have found the binary compatibality between NetBSD and BSD386 to be excellent. >What degree of online/downloadable documentation is there? I have found the avaliable documentation for NetBSD to be lacking. I have had to rely on the little info that exsisted for BSD386 0.1 and its patch levels for all my info. Although this is a huge help, it is really not enough. I hope to start putting together some documents in the near future for people who want to solve some of the more common problems with NetBSD. These are questions like "How do I get slip to work?", etc. The best source of information I found was this newsgroup and the BSD386 FAQ. The XFree86 software suffers the same problem. All the documentation is set up for BSD386 0.1 and FreeBSD in some cases. Although you can extrapolate to get the truth, it can be a real pain. >And now the final question... >Why should I use NetBSD instead of Linux? From what I gather and have played with myself, this is strictly a matter of prefrence. I use NetBSD and am veryy happy with it. I have a good friend who is a Linux nut and swears by it. They are both solid packages and you will do well with either one. Note that if the disk space is an issue I believe Linux is less demanding on that resource. Good luck! You'll need it ... Jim