From owner-freebsd-doc Tue Oct 16 16:19:17 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Received: from mailout6.nyroc.rr.com (mailout6-1.nyroc.rr.com [24.92.226.177]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3D85537B40A for ; Tue, 16 Oct 2001 16:19:13 -0700 (PDT) Received: from sonic.rit.edu (roc-24-93-27-75.rochester.rr.com [24.93.27.75]) by mailout6.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.6/Road Runner 1.12) with ESMTP id f9GNI9F01506 for ; Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:18:09 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20011016105839.02de9800@vmspop.rit.edu> X-Sender: mdp1261@osfpop.rit.edu X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Tue, 16 Oct 2001 19:17:02 -0400 To: freebsd-doc@freebsd.org From: Matt Penna Subject: FAQ & Install.txt Memory Requirements Incorrect Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: owner-freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Dear folks, I don't know if anyone else has reported this already, but I haven't been able to find a previous reference to this problem. A few weeks ago when I was trying to install 4.4-Release on a system with 8MB of memory, I encountered very strange errors and couldn't figure out what the problem was. Several people on -questions pointed out that 8MB was not enough to install, and then we discovered that the reason for my confusion was the install.txt file incorrectly stated it only needed 5MB for install and 4MB to run, as does the FAQ. I had never installed FreeBSD on a machine with so little memory, so I hadn't encountered the problem before. I looked through the various releases and it seems the INSTALL.TXT for 4.1.1, 4.2, and 4.4 all state that only 5MB is needed to install. 4.3's install.txt seems fine, stating the need for "at least 16 megs of RAM to use the installer and 4-8 megs of RAM to run (with a pared-down kernel)." I was told in a couple of responses from -questions that the requirement for install has been >8MB since 4.0-Release, so I'm assuming the install.txt files for 4.1.1, 4.2, and 4.4, as well as the install.htm for 4.4 (and possibly others) are all incorrect. Ironically, 4.3 did successfully install on the machine with only 8MB, so I'm assuming the 16MB requirement provides a comfort zone that will guarantee a successful install on virtually any system. I would submit a fix if I knew at what points and to what amounts of memory the minimum requirements were changed. Can anyone suggest how I should proceed with this, assuming no one else has noticed it yet? Matt -- Matt Penna soba@usagiyojimbo.com mdp1261@rit.edu ICQ: 399825 S0ba on AOLIM "The trouble with computers, of course, is that they're very sophisticated idiots." -Dr. Who To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message