On Mon, Mar 24, 2003 at 12:18:35PM -0500, Huy Vu wrote:

> I also agreed with you that Linux is on the road to bloat-ware. Back in 90s
> I was able to run a minimal Linux efficiently on an x86 based 8meg of ram
> and 2meg of flash for a small Telecom company in Virginia.  However recently
> I tried installing Linux on Pentium II 32 meg machine and it was painfully
> slow.  I think the recommended Minimal system for Red-Hat 8 is 
> 
> Hard Disk Space*:
> Minimum: 650MB
> Recommended: 2.5GB
> Full Installation: 4.5GB
> 
> *Additional space will be required for file storage.
> 
> Memory:
> Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
> Minimum for graphical: 128MB
> Recommended for graphical: 192MB 
> =============
> If that's not bloatware, I don't know what is :-)

Although this is a bit off-topic here, don't consider RedHat as Linux, but
only as a distribution, one may go LFS or debian if they need to start from
very little or almost nothing, and add the userspace components they need from
there... Unlike BSDs which are OSs, Linux is only a kernel, you might as well
choose to run Linux without the aweful glibc, too, which too many people seem
to think a requirement...

When custom configured and compiled, Linux can run fine with 8 megs of RAM

Matt