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Date:      Tue, 7 Jul 1998 13:58:47 +0200
From:      Thomas Zenker <thz@Lennartz-Electronic.DE>
To:        Andrzej Bialecki <abial@nask.pl>
Cc:        freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD in less than 4MB RAM
Message-ID:  <19980707135847.61797@tue.le>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.3.95.980707101327.20507D-100000@korin.warman.org.pl>; from Andrzej Bialecki on Tue, Jul 07, 1998 at 10:15:14AM %2B0200
References:  <199807070702.AAA01156@rah.star-gate.com> <Pine.NEB.3.95.980707101327.20507D-100000@korin.warman.org.pl>

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On Tue, Jul 07, 1998 at 10:15:14AM +0200, Andrzej Bialecki wrote:
> On Tue, 7 Jul 1998, Amancio Hasty wrote:
> 
>> > > > First issue is: what would it take to squeeze any useful combination of
>> > > > kernel, init plus two-three (small) user programs in 4MB? Which
>> > > 
>> > > You don't want to run any inetd processes?  As well as other such things
>> > > which use memory.  
>> > 
>> 
>> I would start by first knowing how much memory is needed to run
>> a kernel, init plus two or three (small) user programs with the
>> current system.
> 
>Not much - my experiments show it's somewhere around 6MB (if you start 2-3
>different programs, so that they can't share their pages). 

A couple of years back it was easily possible to have kernel and a couple of
user processes in 4 MB. I had such a thing running with BSD/386 0.9 - 1.1,
then they got fat. Up to V1.1 it was possible to have a kernel size of
about 360K with the same "needed" functionality as we got later with a
800K V 2.0 kernel. The same with FBSD, I can not get a kernel smaller
than about 800K now. Probably it would be possible to get a better
modularity, but that's very difficult.

For those which say "put in more memory/disk": This doesn't help if you
have to run out of batteries w/ solar-panels on very remote localities,
only access by radio-telemetry. You need very low power equipment there.
So the question is not $ but watts.

-- 
Thomas Zenker

at work         thz@lennartz-electronic.de
private         thz@tuebingen.netsurf.de

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