From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 26 01:35:54 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 6C56316A4CE for ; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:35:54 +0000 (GMT) Received: from kane.otenet.gr (kane.otenet.gr [195.170.0.27]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B29C43D58 for ; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:35:53 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: from gothmog.gr (patr530-a120.otenet.gr [212.205.215.120]) j0Q1Zn8x004972; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:35:49 +0200 Received: from gothmog.gr (gothmog [127.0.0.1]) by gothmog.gr (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id j0Q1ZlNK017251; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:35:47 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Received: (from giorgos@localhost) by gothmog.gr (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id j0Q1Zk63017238; Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:35:46 +0200 (EET) (envelope-from keramida@freebsd.org) Date: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 03:35:46 +0200 (EET) From: Giorgos Keramidas To: "Andrew L. Gould" In-Reply-To: <200501251908.59477.algould@datawok.com> Message-ID: <20050126033019.H6660@gothmog> References: <200501251625.30486.algould@datawok.com> <200501251715.06864.algould@datawok.com> <200501251908.59477.algould@datawok.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed cc: freebsd@orchid.homeunix.org cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: kernel info question 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: Wed, 26 Jan 2005 01:35:54 -0000 On 2005-01-25 19:08, Andrew L. Gould wrote: > On Tuesday 25 January 2005 05:32 pm, Giorgos Keramidas wrote: >> On 2005-01-25 17:15, "Andrew L. Gould" wrote: >>> I'm selecting CPU types in the kernel configuration file, which >>> lists only i386, i486, i586 and i686. >> >> AFAIK, and I may be a bit wrong here, if you don't really expect to >> move disks around and actually run this kernel on a 486-class >> machine, leaving both i586 and i686 won't do any harm. > > Under normal circumstances, I believe you're correct. In fact the > GENERIC kernel has all 4 CPU options un-commented. > > This machine is old and fussy; so I'm trying to trim where I can. This particular optimization (both i586 and i686 vs. only one of the two) will not save much (at most a few KB of kernel size), so it won't give particularly impressive results. The i386 support (which has been dropped in some time during the 5.X development IIRC), *does* have a measurable impact on performance though. This is why I suggested that with both i586 and i686 you should be pretty safe :-) There are other things you can trim, mostly in userland, that may have a larger impact on the hardware requirements of the base system. It would require a complete description of the system from a hardware perspective to decide what matters a lot and choose optimizations that may help. > Efforts to install Win98SE, and 3 distros of Linux ended in failure. That may be a result of other factors. Not kernel size. At least not so much.