Install DragonFlyBSD on 48 MB RAM

[v_2e at ukr.net]

  Hello Paul!

On Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:27:27 +0100
Paul Onyschuk <blink at bojary.koba.pl> wrote:

> With Linux situation is much simpler for single reason: people are
> paid to maintain systems on such hardware (think all embedded
> hardware).  In *BSD world development is driven mostly by volunteers
> and not by hired guns.  This has some side effects - every *BSD has
> its own area of focus.  Developers have limited free time, so they
> don't go after zillon of goals.
> 
  As I said, I am new to all this *BSD world, so I'm just collecting
some basic knowledge about it. Of course, I made a small preliminary
research on different *BSD systems and came to an impression that
  - FreeBSD is targeted at desktops;
  - OpenBSD is targeted at high security servers;
  - NetBSD is targeted at as wide hardware variety as possible;
  - DragonFlyBSD is targeted... well, I haven't actually understood
what it is targeted at, that is why I decided to give it a try and
see by my own eyes. :)

   In any case, this particular "48 MB" machine is not my only PC, so I
could use DragonFlyBSD on other system as well if I like it.

> You wanna run *BSD on limited hardware?  Choose NetBSD, it should run
> just fine with 8MB+ of memory (minimal requirement for i386 is 4MB,
> but I'm not sure if it accurate, when it comes to newer releases) -
> this is their area of focus.
> 
  Yes, perhaps, I'll try different BSDs on this machine just to see how
they will perform on it (the first one - FreeBSD - is already running
there).

> As for DragonFly BSD even if it would be possible to run system with
> 48MB of memory, you'll still loose almost all features, which makes it
> attractive.  Personally I would say that minimal requirements for
> DragonFly BSD are the same as for HAMMER file system, because it is so
> huge feature.
> 
  Well, this IS definitely a point to consider. I've heard some good
comments about HAMMER file system, but I know nothing about it yet. But
of course, I'll read some documentation about it to get the idea.

  Thanks for comments and suggestions.
    Vladimir

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