Subject: Re: netbsd -- why so fat?
To: None <dyoung@pobox.com>
From: Havard Eidnes <he@NetBSD.org>
List: current-users
Date: 10/02/2004 01:26:00
> FWIW, I am Really Disappointed that I cannot run NetBSD on 4MB machin=
es.

Note that there's a difference between being able to run a
customized kernel in a small-memory machine, and being able to run a
"nearly-GENERIC" kernel (with lots of unused drivers) including the
installer and all the corresponding tools, all housed in-memory, as
is required when you load the sysinst-based install images.

A customized 1.6.1 kernel with two ethernet drivers, isa ide disk, a
multi-port serial driver, and wscons weighs in at

% size /netbsd
text    data    bss     dec     hex     filename
1276160 34068   164732  1474960 168190  /netbsd
%

It could probably be trimmed further; it still has NFS.

We do however probably grow the non-optional code in the kernel over
time, which is somewhat unfortunate.

Regards,

- H=E5vard