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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!simtel!news.kei.com!news.mathworks.com!tank.news.pipex.net!pipex!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.mid.net!news.dra.com!news.starnet.net!wupost!newsreader.wustl.edu!sixpack.wustl.edu!not-for-mail From: ml@sixpack.wustl.edu (Matt Lundberg) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc Subject: Re: Extremely low memory system Date: 15 Sep 1995 11:46:04 -0500 Organization: Life's too short to drink cheap beer Lines: 22 Message-ID: <43cakc$2j7@sixpack.wustl.edu> References: <43a1u6$572@tuba.cit.cornell.edu> <43bru9$g3p@n.ruf.uni-freiburg.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: ml@sixpack.wustl.edu Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.os.linux.misc:61173 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:6339 In article <43bru9$g3p@n.ruf.uni-freiburg.de>, Peter Suetterlin <ps@kis.uni-freiburg.de> wrote: > >Yes, Linux will run. I've done it with an 386SX16 with 2MB. >But it starts swapping if you do an ls, so don't expect anything from a >system like that, regardless of your fast disk. I can second that. I tried to get a system up with only 2M of RAM, although this machine had a 386DX with 387. It was essentially useless. I just wanted it to connect with ppp to my terminal servers at school, but the protocols all timed out before pppd could establish the link. This was after compiling a "special" kernel, which was missing floppy and msdos support. It had provision for ext2 filesystem only, although minix may have been a better choice. The kernel code was only about 480K uncompressed, but the machine was still hopeless. An additional 2M made the machine quite usable. -- Matt Lundberg ml@sixpack.wustl.edu