Re: i386 minimum space requirements

[Alexander Schreiber <als%thangorodrim.ch@localhost>]

On Mon, Oct 02, 2023 at 08:16:48PM +0000, John Klos wrote:
> > Huh, looks like distrib/notes/i386/hardware on current and -10 has:
> > 
> > | runs on all i486 or later PC-compatible systems with 1 to 32 processors.
> > | The minimal configuration for a full, standard installation is 64MB of RAM
> > | and 2GB of disk space.
> > 
> > Do you have that 250MB from somewhere else?
> 
> It's from here:
> 
> https://cdn.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-9.3/i386/INSTALL.html
> 
> NetBSD/i386 System Requirements and Supported Devices
> 
> NetBSD 9.3 runs on all i486 or later PC-compatible systems with 1 to 32
> processors. The minimal configuration for a full, standard installation is
> 32MB of RAM and 250MB of disk space.
> 
> > It may be worth adjusting to note that a base-only could be installed
> > in 32MB of RAM and 250MB of disk space, but would not be performant
> > :-p
> 
> Considering how well NetBSD 10 runs on my Mac LC III+ with 36 megs of memory
> and on my VAXstation 4000/30 (also known as VLC) with 24 megs, I think 32
> megs on even a slow clocked i486 should be pretty decent ;)

Depends on what you do with the machine. I'm running NetBSD/i386 9.3
on an Alix (500 MHz AMD Geode, 256M RAM) and top currently says:
105M active. This machine is a dedicated isolation router for a
commercial VoIP phone and it also runs node_exporter (10M resident
alone), darkstat and a bunch of other support tooling. No swap since
the root disk is a CF card. It would _not_ be happy with 32M of RAM.

And disk use: about 4 GB - but that includes a full system source tree,
as the machine was installed with 8.0 and source upgraded via 9.0, 9.1
and now to 9.3.

Kind regards,
           Alex.
-- 
"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and
 looks like work."                                      -- Thomas A. Edison