debian-release cc'd due to minimum system requirement stuff mentioned in a previous message...
Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton writes... > my bug report invites you to consider the impact that such > a policy decision "roll your own or install 2.4 on anything > with <= 48mb of ram", made by mr horms, will have on the > debian project. In reality, not much. But the nice thing about Debian is that it's built to be able to support the needs of minority groups, so there could be a solution for this group if there are people motivated to work on and maintain it. It's not clear that there are though :( > when the 2.4 kernel is no longer maintained / supported > by debian, in oh [wild guess] 2-3 years time, anyone not > sufficiently technically competent who is using debian on > such older hardware is left completely shafted. Yes, but Debian supported those users far longer than any other major distribution, they abandoned older hardware a long time ago. Just as Debian no longer supports 386/25 systems with 8mb RAM, there will come a day when it no longer makes sense to support pentium-90s with 48mb RAM. (I would argue we've passed it already...) If users want to continue to keep this old hardware limping along, I don't think it's unreasonable that they have the competency to do it themselves instead of being a burden on the developers and majority of the user base. Users who can't can upgrade their hardware, Debian's minimum config will always be a system that is nearly free to obtain in most countries around the world. There is an organization in Portland, OR, USA called FreeGeek ( http://freegeek.org ) that recycles computer equipment and turns it into as many working computers as possible (running Debian) and donates them to various groups around the world. They maintain a specification of the minimum requirements for the systems they build. Currently this is, http://freegeek.org/freekbox.php * Pentium III 500 - 566mhz * 128MB RAM * 9 - 10 GB hard drive * 14x - 24x CD ROM drive * Floppy disk drive * 17 inch color monitor * 56k Modem * 10/100 Network card * Keyboard * Mouse * Speakers IMO, at any given time this spec is a good indication of what the minimal system is to even attempt to run Debian on, anything less would be painful. If the debian-release team decides to come up with minimum system requirements for etch, I think a good place to aim for i386 would be slightly less than whereever the freekbox spec is at the time. -- Matt Taggart [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
