Date: Sat, 24 Jan 2004 18:00:25 +1100 (EST) From: Peter Jeremy <PeterJeremy@optushome.com.au> To: FreeBSD-gnats-submit@FreeBSD.org Subject: www/61824: Misleading documentation on FreeBSD installation requirements Message-ID: <200401240700.i0O70Pt2012567@cirb503493.alcatel.com.au> Resent-Message-ID: <200401240710.i0O7AEB5036843@freefall.freebsd.org>
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>Number: 61824 >Category: www >Synopsis: Misleading documentation on FreeBSD installation requirements >Confidential: no >Severity: non-critical >Priority: low >Responsible: freebsd-www >State: open >Quarter: >Keywords: >Date-Required: >Class: doc-bug >Submitter-Id: current-users >Arrival-Date: Fri Jan 23 23:10:13 PST 2004 >Closed-Date: >Last-Modified: >Originator: Peter Jeremy >Release: FreeBSD 5-CURRENT i386 (and 4.9-STABLE) >Organization: n/a >Environment: System: FreeBSD cirb503493.alcatel.com.au 4.9-STABLE FreeBSD 4.9-STABLE #5: Sat Dec 20 08:48:42 EST 2003 root@server.vk2pj.dyndns.org:/home/obj/i586/usr/src/sys/pj1592 i386 >Description: Neither the FreeBSD 4.9-RELEASE nor 5.2-RELEASE i386 Hardware Notes mention the minimum amount of RAM necessary to install FreeBSD using the -RELEASE images and I cannot find this information in any other obvious place starting at www.freebsd.org. It would be useful to include a link to the installation instructions from the "Current releases" section of http://www.freebsd.org/releases/index.html The head of src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/installation/common/install.sgml states under "Hardware Requirements" (section 1.2) that a minimum of 5MB RAM is necessary to install FreeBSD in an i386 and 4MB to run it. My understanding is that sysinstall requires needs at least 16MB RAM (this is documented in install.sgml for 4.x). Both the installation notes and hardware notes for -current state that FreeBSD will run on an 80386 or better. This is not true for the GENERIC install images which require an 80486 or better. Running FreeBSD 5-CURRENT on an 80386 requires compiling a custom kernel. In addition, running any version of 5.x requires hardware FPU support by default. This means it is not possible to install on an 80386 without an 80387 or 80486SX without 80487 (MATH_EMULATE was removed from GENERIC in 1.324 on 2001.10.20). Early versions of 5.x could be re-compiled to use an FPU emulator but this was removed prior to 5.2-RELEASE ([GPL_]MATH_EMULATE was removed from NOTES in 1.1091 on 2003.07.22). It is possible that this event has been mis-transcribed into the i386 release notes as dropping support for the 80386SX (the 80386SX reference was reworded in src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/hardware/i386/proc-i386.sgml v1.12 on 2003.07.29) - I am unaware of any reason other than (lack of) performance that would prevent FreeBSD running on an 80386SX/80387SX combination. >How-To-Repeat: Documentation and commit log inspection >Fix: 1) Add links to Installation notes under "Current releases" in http://www.freebsd.org/releases/index.html and install the installation notes. 2) Update the comments regarding supported CPUs in section id="proc" of src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/hardware/i386/proc-i386.sgml to indicate that an FPU is mandatory on the 386 and 486SX and that the 386 requires a customised kernel. 3) Add comment regarding RAM to section id="proc" of src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/hardware/i386/proc-i386.sgml along the lines of: "FreeBSD requires a minimum of 4MB to 8MB to run, this can be increased substantially by application requirements - a GUI desktop may need 200MB to run satisfactorily. Installing FreeBSD via sysinstall requires a minimum of 16MB." This would logically go just before the reference to PAE. 4) Update section 1.2 "Hardware Requirements" of src/release/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/installation/common/install.sgml along the lines of: "The standard FreeBSD installation requires a 486 or better processor and at least 16MB RAM. There is no support for the 286 or FPU-less CPUs. The 386 requires a 387 NPX and a customised kernel. The 486SX requires a 487 NPX. FreeBSD needs a minimum of 4-8MB RAM on top of application requirements." I will try and write the above as patches if I get the time. >Release-Note: >Audit-Trail: >Unformatted:
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