On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 12:51:53AM +0100, Riccardo Mottola wrote: > Hi Chris, > > Chris Bee wrote: > >On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +0000, Miod Vallat wrote: > >> > >>The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. > >>The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical > >>memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is > >>basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is > >>swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. > >> > >>Your available options are: > >>- run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything >= 4.5 will > >> fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. > >>- build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your > >> ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, > >> so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. > >>- add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see > >> your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? > >>- get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. > >> > >>Miod > >I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is > >barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, > >possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only > >option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good > >suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of > >dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires > >so much RAM.... :) > > > Right :) well, it is for fun of course. I too am playing with NetBSD > on a ThinkPad 600E and OpenBSD on an Omnibook 800. > > You have a fine machine, why let it get dust? those old boxen have > sometimes a charme newer don't have, a solid feel and for example > older ThinkPads a marvellous keyboard. I use mine to hack a bit and > to telnet/ssh around.. > >... > > My OmniBook has 32MB with OpenBSD 5.4 "generic" is usable > command-line, however while starting Xorg now works, it is unusable, > totally swap-bound. > >... > > Riccardo After some searching around on eBay, I'm surprised to find that there is lots of old RAM floating around. I have taken a look at my ThinkPad and I do have several RAM expansion slots, meaning I won't have to throw this laptop away, and could even upgrade the RAM to 64 MB, meaning I should be able to run OpenBSD 5.4, and probably NetBSD (but I like OpenBSD more on my laptops). Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss this laptop. I'll still need to get a new one, though, I don't think this one would be good for movies or web browsing, but it looks like I will be able to use it for work (programming in C, reading emails etc).
I have actually gotten X to start on my laptop, and it isn't completely unusable if I just run a single xterm. This is all on 7 year old software (OpenBSD 4.0), but from what you have said, it seems possible on 5.4. Thanks for the advice, there seem to be few stories of 5.4 on old laptops, probably due to how recent 5.4 is. It's nice to know it's actually possible and has been done. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
