>Date: Thu, 28 Jan 1999 14:20:33 -0500 (EST)
>From: ap748@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Fred Horvat)
>
>	I am interested in using a Unix clone on my Atari TT030.
>My hardware consists of a 4 Meg ST RAM/0 Meg TT RAM, TT030 with FPU,
>with an IBM SCSI 270 Meg hard drive, and a standard VGA monitor.
>I would like to try NetBSD on this machine in X11 graphical mode.
>My question is with 4 Meg of RAM is it possible and if so is the
>swapping bearable?   If more RAM is required does NetBSD use both
>ST/TT RAM together or is it segmented like under TOS?

I would expect it to work.  Memory will be tight until you reach the
point during the boot process when swapctl is run, but if you can make
it that far you should be fine as long as you have plenty of swap.

NetBSD/atari will use both ST and TT RAM, but they are handled
somewhat differently.  Certain operations such as DMA and
ST-compatible video can only operate out of ST-RAM, so the system
needs to reserve some ST-RAM for those operations.  In some cases,
fixed amounts of memory are reserved, while in others the amount
reserved is tunable.

Swapping will probably be bearable, but you will want to carefully
trim the kernel configuration to minimize the size of the kernel and
the amount of reserved ST memory.  (See the ST_POOL_SIZE option in the
kernel configuration, or you can binary patch an existing kernel as
mentioned in the FAQ:  http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/atari/faq.html#q3.1
)

>	If my current setup is not sufficient I also have a
>14 Meg Falcon, no FPU, with a 80 Meg internal IDE hard drive,
>and a standard VGA monitor.  With 14 Megs of RAM can I do without
>a swap file to save space on the 80 meg hard drive?  Any help/comments
>are appreciated.

I would strongly recommend that you get a larger drive and use some
swap space, especially since you plan to run X.  You may be able to
get by without any swap but don't expect the system to be terribly
useful.  Even compiling a new kernel or rebuilding userland from
source is probably going to need a bit more memory to work with.  If
you're going to try to run the system without swap, carefully tuning
the kernel to remove options and devices you don't need would be a
good way to maximize your available memory.

Cheers,
entropy

--
entropy -- it's not just a good idea, it's the second law.