From owner-freebsd-newbies Thu Aug 27 12:25:46 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id MAA08002 for freebsd-newbies-outgoing; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 12:25:46 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from spectre.honk.org (honk.org [206.191.48.225]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id MAA07928 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 12:25:26 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mpoulin@honk.org) Received: from sw47 ([207.219.2.29]) by spectre.honk.org (8.8.4/8.7.3) with SMTP id OAA03869 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 14:15:09 -0400 Message-Id: <3.0.3.32.19980827152357.009063e0@honk.org> X-Sender: mpoulin@honk.org X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Light Version 3.0.3 (32) Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:23:57 -0400 To: freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG From: Martin Poulin Subject: Back on topic... Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-newbies@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org I know the Handbook says at least a 386DX with 8MB of RAM is the recommended minimum, but let's be a little more realistic. What would you consider to be the minimum system to have a decent installation of FreeBSD running? Also, what do you think would be a good amount of disk space to set aside for FreeBSD (I guess that depends on what you plan to install). For that matter, what do you consider a "decent installation"? I am currently running 2.2.7-release with full sources, X, and a few ports (Netscape, XFMail, FVWM2, XMame, rxvt...) on a 486DX4 100 with 16MB RAM and 540MB HD. I find that I am running into 2 problems: - X runs VERY slowly at times - especially running Netscape and XMame. (I never realized Pac-Man could be soooo slow). - I have run out of disk space. (95% capacity in /usr if I delete my Netscape cache - otherwise 106% capacity!!) So in my case, a 486 with 16 MB ram is way too slow, and I need tons more disk space. If I wasn't running X, it would be a different story. The first time I installed FreeBSD, I installed 2.2.5-release on 250MB. (The same 486 system dual-booting with win95) No sources, no X, just a bare-bones install that worked quite nicely. I even had room to install a few of my favorite apps (pine, lynx etc.) So in my opinion, you can definitely run FreeBSD quite well on a small system, as long as you do a small install. If you want a kick-ass install, you simply need a bigger system. Funny - the reason I got this little system to begin with was to use it as a firewall for the bigger system that I planned to buy to run Windows. Now I still want the bigger system, but not for Windows any more! m. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-newbies" in the body of the message