small FreeBSD (was Re: IBM 5120 (was Re: My First S-100 System))

From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
Date: Mon Oct 14 08:57:01 2002

"Scarletdown" <SecretaryBird_at_softhome.net> wrote:
> Yeah. I discovered that shortly after my last post. How about
> FreeBSD? Would that work on such a miniscule setup?

You may need more than 8MB of RAM to run FreeBSD versions >= 3. 2.2.x
will run in 8MB, maybe as little as 4MB (I'm thinking the "5MB"
requirement on the CD jewel-box insert had to do with running
sysinstall from a RAMdisk filesystem). ObClassicmp: 486/33, 8MB RAM
200MB HD, running FreeBSD 2.2.6-STABLE of 23 Apr 1998 and in use as
dial-on-demand PPP router w/NAT. I've had the hardware for >10 years
so it must be on topic.

There's been some recent discussion on the freebsd-stable mailing list
about how to do a small installation, where "small" would appear to be
in the 14-83MB range. Take a look at (long URL):
<http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&threadm=E17xMiU-000JaP-00%40rip.psg.com&rnum=1>
These folks are mostly discussing version 4.x on later iron with more
RAM but comparable disk space (sometimes with flash EEPROM imitating
disk).

There's also the PicoBSD project whose aim is (or at least used to be)
a floppy-sized installation based on FreeBSD.

I think you'll find that this is another experience-building project.

-Frank McConnell
Received on Mon Oct 14 2002 - 08:57:01 BST

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