On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 08:39:45PM -0800, Constantine A. Murenin wrote: > On 22 December 2013 14:45, Chris Bee <anommin...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +0000, Miod Vallat wrote: > >> > I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some > >> > trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. > >> [...] > >> > I have read INSTALL.i386 and > >> > it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. > >> [...] > >> > Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. > >> > >> 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.... :) > > There's an old tool called `dmassage` (in ports since 3.9) that may > offer some help in building a smaller kernel for your situation. > > http://ports.su/sysutils/dmassage > > Cheers, > Constantine.
Very interesting, this will come in handy. I managed to find a 16 MB RAM module, bringing my RAM total to 32 MB. Installed 5.4 and boots fine, no problems. X doesn't work due to a lack of RAM causing swapping (which slows the laptop greatly), but maybe dmassage will help get rid of some device drivers and help the situation. Thanks for your help. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
