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Date:      Thu, 1 Jun 95 22:37:44 MDT
From:      terry@cs.weber.edu (Terry Lambert)
To:        dbaker@Concorde-Mail.NeoSoft.COM (Daniel Baker)
Cc:        hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: FreeBSD on 286?
Message-ID:  <9506020437.AA26144@cs.weber.edu>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.950601164705.371A-100000@concorde.neosoft.com> from "Daniel Baker" at Jun 1, 95 04:50:04 pm

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> I've got an old 286 box with an 80 meg hard drive.. Is there any change 
> that I can get FreeBSD running on it?
> 
> I think I can put memory in there, it's only got 640k of memory now.. :-) 
> heh, I'll add another 8 megs...

The MACH VM system requires a PMMU; there are also assumptions in the
swap, shared library, mmap, and linker that support this supposition.

For the same reason, Motorolla processers prior to the 68030 or the
68020 with companion PMMU chip can't run NetBSD.

Similarly, SVR2.3 is the last System V system that will run with the
same hardware limitations.

I've considered back-porting a simpler VM system, but the work would
not be worth the effort (I don't even own anything less than a 486
except real old hardware, and I already have SVR2.3 for my Amiga
1000 with 68010), although it would probably be worthwhile to make
memory overcommit switchable in MACH VM, which is similar to solving
part of the problems involved.


					Terry Lambert
					terry@cs.weber.edu
---
Any opinions in this posting are my own and not those of my present
or previous employers.



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