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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!noc.netcom.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.clark.net!rwatson From: rwatson@clark.net (Robert Watson) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Post of praise for 2.0.5R: efficiency and min platform Date: 20 Jun 1995 03:08:22 GMT Organization: The Star-Lit BBS, Bethesda, Maryland, USA Lines: 30 Message-ID: <3s5e36$3o3@clarknet.clark.net> NNTP-Posting-Host: clark.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Just thought a quick note of praise was appropriate. The hardware minimum platforms in the install guide/relnotes really are about right ;). I like to prove things can be done, and I'd like to report that FreeBSD runs well under 4 megs of ram on a 386sx20 ;). I'd also like to report that so does XWindows on an et3000 video card on the same system ;). Admittadly I'm not running most of my applications on the local system -- mostly remotely with my system as the display, but it *does* work ;).For anyone intersted, there are a number of ways to get this to work ;). The key thing is to free up a lot of memory so things don't have to swap a lot. The most effective way I've found of doing this is to a) be in single user mode without most daemons running and b) prevent the server from reloading/etc if at all possible. Also use efficient window managers, etc. I run xdm from single user mode to bring up the server, then log in using olwm, and two-three xterms. I have an 800x600 desktop in a 640x480 viewport (my monior can't quite make 800x600 under Xfree86 -- can under windows, but apparently that's not quite the same ;). Admittadly the swapping is there occasionally, and certainly more than under 4 more megs of ram, but it does work effectively enough that I use my 386sx20 w/4megs of ram as an xterm hooked up to another system. To me this is pretty incredible ;). Many thanks to the whole FreeBSD development team.. The isntallation was a little rough watered (problems with lack of memory and processies being killed before swap was enabled (like the boot sector writing processesss under sysinstall ;)), it's running great now. Thanks! -- Robert Watson rwatson@sidwell.edu http://www.sidwell.edu/~rwatson/ The goal of science is to build better mousetraps. The goal of nature is to build better mice.