From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Mar 8 20:38:35 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 80E8316A4CE for ; Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:38:35 +0000 (GMT) Received: from skipjack.no-such-agency.net (skipjack.no-such-agency.net [64.142.114.146]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 12C1D43D1D for ; Tue, 8 Mar 2005 20:38:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from jpp@cloudview.com) Received: from skipjack.no-such-agency.net (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by skipjack.no-such-agency.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id AEA4F34D44D; Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:38:32 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.2.120] (blackhole.no-such-agency.net [64.142.103.196]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by skipjack.no-such-agency.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0323B34D44C; Tue, 8 Mar 2005 12:38:31 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <422E0D47.4050800@cloudview.com> Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 12:38:31 -0800 From: John Pettitt Organization: CloudView Photographic User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0 (Windows/20041206) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Goodell References: <20050308190411.69669.qmail@web52905.mail.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <20050308190411.69669.qmail@web52905.mail.yahoo.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.90.1.1 X-Enigmail-Supports: pgp-inline, pgp-mime Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-AV-Checked: by skipjack cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Size of FreeBSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 08 Mar 2005 20:38:35 -0000 Mark Goodell wrote: >Could you please tell me how big FreeBSD is, in terms >of both (1) the bare minimum needed to run >applications and (2) the typical installation. How >many 1.44MB diskettes, for example. > >The point of my interest has to do with an old concern >about how the OS's (Microsoft's especially) have >become gargantuan in size. > >Thank you! > >Mark Goodell, Richmond, VA. > > > Part of the answer to your question relates to the definition of "operating system" FreeBSD will boot from 2 floppies - thats how the install works and if you were building an embedded system without all the normal utilities and user interface you could do so from a flash card with ease. If you want a "real" computer - with compilers, tools UI and the like then you'll need a bigger box. Some real world examples: m0n0wall runs a bare bones FreeBSD from an 8MB flash card but suggests 64MB of RAM.. I have an old PIII/200 with a 4G disk and 64MB memory running FreeBSD that runs my solar power system - it's total overkill the cpuload runs about 2%. However to compile some of the tools I wanted to use 64MB was too small - the compiler was paging it it took forever. If I wanted to just run the solar power application I could probably run the whole thing on a 486 class machine with 32mb ram and boot from a 32mb flash card (but why buy a new box when you've got a 'free' old one?) My home server / router / stratum one time server / firewall / fax server / and every thing else server runs on a $350 eMachines box with a 2.9GHz Celeron and 512MB memory (oh and 2TB of disks :) It comes down to what do you want to do, what application do you want to run. As they say - YMMV. John