14 Oct
2002
14 Oct
'02
4:57 a.m.
"Scarletdown" <SecretaryBird(a)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
14 Oct
14 Oct
7:50 a.m.
On Monday, October 14, 2002, Frank McConnell wrote:
You may need more than 8MB of RAM to run FreeBSD
versions >= 3.
I did 3.4 in 8MB, IIRC. It was a 486-class SBC with 8MB RAM and an 8MB
DiskOnChip.
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.
At one time I was working on a distribution-maker for FreeBSD. You wrote one
file that was a complete distro config, and you handed it to my program,
which would do all the build/package work and spit out a disk/ROM image. I
had a working prototype version, but was pulled off the project by my
employer, who needed me to work on other things. I called it TinyBSD,
because it was more generically applicable and configurable than PicoBSD
which, in truth, was inextricably coupled to the idea of floppy disks. I
still have the domain name tinybsd\.(com|net|org) registered.
Getting paid to work on embedded FreeBSD was wonderful while it lasted. It's
a pipe dream, but I would give away all my classiccmps if I could only have
a steady position doing that again.
There's also the PicoBSD project whose aim is (or
at least used to be) a
floppy-sized installation based on FreeBSD.
If it's anything like PicoBSD used to be, it is useful only as a learning
tool -- learning how to do it the right way. :-( The upshot of this is that,
with moderate knowledge of UNIX, you can learn how to create a custom
FreeBSD distro in an afternoon, reading the PicoBSD shell scripts.
--
Jeffrey Sharp
7947
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