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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!feeder.chicago.cic.net!ftpbox.mot.com!mothost.mot.com!lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com!supra.rsch.comm.mot.com!rittle From: rittle@supra.rsch.comm.mot.com (Loren James Rittle) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: FreeBSD Laptop recomendations...? Date: 30 Apr 1997 23:18:07 GMT Organization: LMPS Research, Motorola Lines: 70 Message-ID: <5k8jvf$491@lmpsbbs.comm.mot.com> References: <33661103.1B0@white-eye-alive.org> NNTP-Posting-Host: supra.comm.mot.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:40080 In article <33661103.1B0@white-eye-alive.org>, Andrew Perkins <apsolid@white-eye-alive.org> wrote: >Ive been teaching myself c++ from my friends mac and ISP /w >shell account and really want my own "developer laptop" running >FreeBSD. I need the laptop to: (1) hold the "X-developer" >canned distribution (MB???), I have a FreeBSD-2.2.1 laptop configuration as such: Entire FreeBSD developer installation with PAO patches installed (entire FreeBSD distribution without packages, source for entire kernel+utils) XFree86 (w/o source) SSH, Emacs + 1-2 MB of installed local binaries Here is my current file system layout: 12MB in / (I have 32MB allocated) 308MB in /usr (I have 512MB allocated) 1MB in /usr/users (I have 390MB allocated) 1MB in /var (I have 32MB allocated) 64MB swap There are objects for one kernel present in /usr/src/sys/compile, but no objects for utilities are present in /usr/src. Assuming you want source to X, you will need to add whatever space is required for it and at least one set of objects since my configuration doesn't account for it. OTHO, the above configuration can compile X applications, if that is what you meant by X-developer. Assuming you only want source to X or FreeBSD plus one rather large application, you might get away with a laptop with only 512 MB of disk. >(2) compile quickly (pentium100 is adaquate, but how much ram (16-32)), To recompile the entire kernel, while sshd, X (started from xdm), xsm, twm, xconsole, 2 xterms and GNU Emacs (native X support) [plus normal system daemons minus cron and lpd] are running without any paging, I have found that 40 MB of RAM works great. However, by my study of system statistics, I think 24 MB of RAM would page minimally with the above configuration. If you intend to do large-scale compiles and still be able to use X applications without much paging, I think you will be unhappy with only 16 MB or RAM. I have removed the 32 MB DIMM from my laptop and I can report that it is quite painful to use X applications with only 8 MB of RAM. This is without even factoring in overhead of compiling. Also, my testing was done with GCC compiling C not C++. I'd assume more RAM to handle C++ programs. >(3) connect to random >network links (i know thats a tough one, what I mean is modem/PPP >and ethernet, not necessarily simultaniously) If you install PAO patches, Ethernet and modem PCMCIA cards appear to be well supported. Serial modems are supported directly as well. >BOTTOM LINE___ ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR CHEAP/QUALITY PC LAPTOP HARDWARE >CAPABLE OF RUNNING FREEBSD. I would love to hear from folks on this >list who are already running from laptop, who may email me directly if >they like. Thanks in advance. Bottom line: you will need 24 MB of RAM and 512 MB of disk at a minimum. I like my IBM ThinkPad 560 a lot, but it wasn't very cheap... :-) Regards, Loren -- Loren J. Rittle (rittle@comm.mot.com) PGP KeyIDs: 1024/B98B3249 2048/ADCE34A5 Systems Technology Research (IL02/2240) FP1024:6810D8AB3029874DD7065BC52067EAFD Motorola, Inc. FP2048:FDC0292446937F2A240BC07D42763672 (847) 576-7794 Call for verification of fingerprints.