On Sat, 30 Dec 2000, Rafael R. Sevilla wrote:
> This is pure hell. I've tried doing this myself, and I can say that it's
> not very pretty. The only distribution I could get to work with such a
> system was smallinux; even slackware 3.0 wouldn't install with less than 8
> megs. I used smalllinux to bootstrap Slackware 3.1 (as both smalllinux
> and 3.1 used kernel 2.0.0), and once I got some useful programs loaded, it
> was a royal pain in the (expletive deleted). A kernel compile took four
> times longer than with the 8 megs I was able to get later on. Adding just
> 4 megs made such a big difference. The processor didn't seem to matter as
> much as the memory I had available. With 8 megs, a 386SX/40, and 300 megs
> of hard disk space I was able to build PostGreSQL 6.5.3 and develop a
> video rental program using Perl. It worked well for a while until the
> business quadrupled its inventory and more than doubled its number of
> customers, whence the database system slowed to a crawl...
Linux was one cool cookie which really made good use of additional RAM. I
remember when documentation about compiling the kernel would recommend
having a pizza, or going out to watch a movie while the box churned out
the kernel binaries. :)
I remember the very first time I actually booted Linux with 4MB RAM with
no swap space yet, the distribution that I tried then, SLS, the
predecessor of Slackware, took forever to run the install/setup scripts.
Yes it would boot into Linux, but running anything else after that was
like wading through thick tar/mollasses on a cold day. Really
excruciating. I had no qualms about getting that additional 4MB to make
8MB RAM just to get Linux to work comfortably then, but then, being a
student with not enough money, I had to BORROW that extra 4MB just to
setup a system with swap space. After that, it ran fine, albeit still with
the disk thrashing.
My idea of heaven back in 1992-1993 was a 486 with 16M RAM. I don't
remember how much hard disk space I drooled after though.
-xen
--
eric pareja ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) ~-=[O]=-~ Here, have a clue. Get the picture.
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