NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/comp/os/linux/9605

Text File | 1992-09-01 | 1.8 KB | 39 lines

Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!eff!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!bloom-picayune.mit.edu!daemon
From: [e-mail] (Theodore Ts'o)
Subject: Re: Minimum requirements for linux - just to run single user
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Mr Background)
Reply-To: [e-mail] (Theodore Ts'o)
Organization: The Internet
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 21:13:39 GMT
Lines: 27

   From: [e-mail] (Kevin J. Cummings)
   Date: 1 Sep 92 17:58:11 GMT

   Sounds like 1MB is too little memory.  I have heard of people running
   in 2MB on 386SX processors.  Just be sure to configure a swap
   partition (4-8MB) to get you running.  As long as there is sufficient
   memory to run the kernel in, swap space will look like paged virtual
   memory to your system, and it will manage it for you.

With the next patch level release of Linux, it will be *possible* to run
Linux with 1MB of memory.  (Actually, it was possible before, but only
if you could map your 640K-1024K RAM to 1024K-1408K, and not use it for
ROM shadow memory.)  Even though it will be possible, I don't think it
will be at all practical though; you wouldn't have any space for any
real buffer cache, and you'd be swapping all the time.  However, you
might be able to get away with it for a standalone, one application-only
system.

The new patch level should also improve performance on 2meg and 4meg
machines, especially 2 meg machines.  I think 2 meg machines will
probably have to be considered the limit of what's practical to have a
real system; and you really want to have 4 megs if you want to run X11.
(I tried running X on 2 meg system once.  It was really painful.  Just
trying to type into an xterm caused the system to thrash.  :-)

                            - Ted