*BSD News Article 39176


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From: michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Subject: Re: FTPing BSD
Date: 01 Dec 1994 05:51:55 GMT
Organization: HeadCandy Associates... Sweets for the lobes.
Lines: 42
Message-ID: <MICHAELV.94Nov30235155@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
References: <107_9411291948@garmr.waterloo-rdp.on.ca>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mindbender.headcandy.iastate.edu
In-reply-to: cory@garmr.waterloo-rdp.on.ca's message of 29 Nov 94 19:26:10

In article <107_9411291948@garmr.waterloo-rdp.on.ca> cory@garmr.waterloo-rdp.on.ca (Cory Albrecht) writes:

   Is there some place where I could FTP a version of BSD for a 486DX?
   Something that will run well in only 4M of memory, has SoundBlaster Pro
   support as well as an X (with Motif) implementation for VESA. Also, if you
   could tell me how much disk space it requires and if it can co-exist with
   DOS, that would be appreciated.

You can get NetBSD-1.0 from ftp.iastate.edu.  An INSTALL doc
accompanies the installation, and tells you pretty much everything you
need to know.  In addition, a FAQ is posted regularly in
comp.os.386bsd.announce.  It should do everything you want, although I
think the SoundBlaster support might be kind of rough.  It will
coexist nicely with MS-DOS partitions, even allowing you to mount
MS-DOS partitions under NetBSD.

FreeBSD can be found on freebsd.cdrom.com.  It should also do all the
stuff you want.

Motif is a commercial product (for any unix) and will cost you money.
You can get it for either system from a couple of different companies.
I think prices usually run around $150.  Motif is not required for X.
I run X constantly with no Motif support.

Both systems will run in 4MB, but don't expect to get very good
performance while doing anything big.  You can pretty much forget
about running X with 4MB.  While possible, it would be absolutely
miserable to use.  You'd be better off sticking with a text tty until
you can upgrade your RAM.  I've run X in 10MB, and it was usable.  But
X is *much* more pleasant with 16MB of RAM.  I currently have 20MB of
RAM in my machine, and it feels just about perfect now.  (Everything
about memory usage applies to *all* PC Unix systems, as well as
anything else big, like Windoze NT, OS/2, NextStep, DesqView/X, etc.)


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   Michael L. VanLoon     michaelv@HeadCandy.com     michaelv@iastate.edu
  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x for PC/Mac/Amiga/etc.
     Working NetBSD ports: 386+PC, Mac, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4c, PC532
               In progress: DEC pmax (MIPS R2k/3k), VAX, Sun4m
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