Rainer Heilke wrote: >> Yes, it's all about the boot architecture. SPARC will be doing >> something similar in the not-too-distant future. > > So, the plans are to make the SPARC version need more memory as well? > Sorry, but this seems a step backwards to me. >
It's unclear whether it will in fact need more memory, but this change has enormous other benefits that are much more important to Solaris and Sun as a whole. >> It's possible we can reduce it, but it requires some actual >> engineering, and for us it hasn't been high enough priority. > > Well, perhaps the OS community can help with this. If I was a > programmer, I'd be seriously inclined to help. :-/ > I would have suggested that if the code in question were open; once it is, that will be an option. >> One thing that will run on less memory right now, at least >> theoretically since I don't have any convenient boxes with less >> than 1 GB to try it on, is the Live DVD prototype we have been >> working on which is over on the Live Media project[1]. We're going >> to try to put some sort of minimal installer on it soon; > > That sound like a positive move. > >> meantime you can try out the Belenix version which is similar and >> already does have an install. It ain't Solaris, but it is >> OpenSolaris, and I think it's a dandy way to try out a lot of >> things. > > I'm not so much interested in "trying out" things. I have my own > systems for that. I'm building a (free) system for someone else that > I can support. As for others (parts of our target audience), they > need versions of OS that they can load on small-memory systems. If > Belenix (as an example) can install on a small-memory system, why > can't the main OS tree go the same route? > If Belenix isn't interesting, oh well, just thought I should mention the option. It's not a matter of "can't", it's a matter of different constraints we have on the Solaris product that need to be dealt with, which Belenix doesn't have. If Belenix goes to multiple CD's, then they may be faced with some of the same issues. Dave
