On Fri, 22 May 1998, J.Josh Feng wrote:

> As you can see, when you visit this web site, it runs
> NetBSD 1.2.1 on an old Intel 386/SX PC with 4 MB RAM.
> 
> http://clerc.engr.wisc.edu
> 
	Good to hear!

> It really works. I had tried to install FreeBSD at first,
> but the FreeBSD could not fit into this 4 MB machine. I
> had even tried OpenBSD with no better luck.
> 
	The NetSBD/vax FAQ site runs on a MicroVAX II, a machine with
	probably less raw CPU than your '386:
		http://vaxine.bitcon.no/
	It is important for NetBSD to work across the board, from the
	least of machines right up to the largest Digital Alpha servers.

> Does NetBSD has higher coding standard than other 'free'
> BSD's? The OpenBSD boasts its emphosis on security. The
> FreeBSD surely has the best software resources so far.

	NetBSD tries to emphasise correct design and well written code.
	Examples include implementing a machine independant bus
	infrastructure so a single driver can be shared across different
	busses (such as PCI, EISA, Turbochannel), and across different
	platforms (alpha, pmax, i386 etc), rather than writing and having 
	to maintain N x M different versions of the driver, each with
	their own tweaks. It also means a new port just has to implement
	its machine specific code to access the machine independant bus 
        infrastructure and all the relevant ahrdware device should Just
	Work.

> The installation procedures for NetBSD 1.2.1 had some
> bugs, at least I had to move and modify some files around
> not exactly as described in the installation intructin.
> I am not sure how much it has improved in NetBSD 1.3.1.
> Since this web serve may be upgraded in the future, could
> you direct some information to me, so I would stick to
> NetBSD? Thank you very much.

	The install procedure in NetBSD/i386 1.3 and later has been much
	improved form the earlier versions. I believe it should still work
	on 4MB machines, but possibly someone from the port-i386 list
	could confirm this?

	The 1.3.1 install notes are available as:
		ftp://ftp.NetBSD.ORG/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-1.3.1/i386/INSTALL

		David/absolute

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