Return to BSD News archive
Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!swidir.switch.ch!newsfeed.ACO.net!Austria.EU.net!EU.net!howland.reston.ans.net!news.nic.surfnet.nl!sun4nl!news.iaf.nl!iafnl.iaf.nl!fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl!root From: geert@dfki.uni-kl.de (Geert Bosch) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Extremely low memory system Date: 18 Sep 1995 17:37:37 GMT Organization: DFKI (Deutsches Forschungsinstitut f"ur K"unstliche Intelligenz) Lines: 36 Message-ID: <43kap1$82g@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl> References: <MICHAELV.95Sep17014327@MindBender.HeadCandy.com> Reply-To: geert@sun3.iaf.nl NNTP-Posting-Host: fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:60766 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:6206 : We're about to experiment with turning old machines that are replaced : into xterminals. The current guess is to install linux & xfree86 o : them; i don't think we have anything short of 4M386's (acutally, 486's : may fall out for this use). : : The only duty of such a thing would be to serve as an xhost over telnet : through the univeristy network (which isn't overloaded). : : Are we doomed? is this enough? Will paginging do us in? : :In a word: miserable. As in, I believe the performance would be :miserable and nobody would have any desire to do real work on them. B*llsh*t. I've worked a lot on a 5 MB SPARC system, running SunOS 4.1.3 which was being used as an X terminal for an high-end HP workstation. It works perfectly well and actually, because the Sun had such a nice screen (better than are standard nowadays) and a good optical mouse, it was one of the nicer systems to work with. Since SPARC code takes more memory than Intel 80x86 code, 4 MB on an Intel should be comparable. A good (fast) graphics adapter and monitor are more important. In that area the PC's could be a little too light. For running X 1024x768 @ 70 Hz is the absolute minimum, and for that resolution you should use an accelerated card. ::I wouldn't recommend anything less than 8MB for X. And, 16MB is :really where it starts getting "nice". Don't be confused by running the *complete* multi-user OS plus the X-Server. A bare X server doesn't need nearly that much. If you aren't going to run any applications on the system, 4 MB is sufficient, and 8 MB is plenty. As I remember there is a bare XKernel configuration: just the kernel with an X-server: no real OS will be loaded. -- E-Mail: geert@sun3.iaf.nl Phone: +31-53-303054