FWIW my understanding is that ZFS root is such a memory hog that anything under 16GB is disrecommended and 32GB preferable. (I have only one machine that fits that constraint, and FreeBSD doesn't quite work on it yet.)
On Tue, Sep 30, 2025 at 3:38 PM Rick Macklem <rick.mack...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, Sep 28, 2025 at 7:59 AM Warner Losh <i...@bsdimp.com> wrote: > > > > > > > > On Sun, Sep 28, 2025, 4:47 AM Graham Perrin <grahamper...@gmail.com> > wrote: > >> > >> Follow-up to < > https://bugs.freebsd.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=287719#c6> > >> > >> Good news. > >> > >> 2048 MB is sufficient with root-on-ZFS for an ordinary installation > >> (more than base, less than all of FreeBSD-base) of 15.0-ALPHA4 > >> plus these five non-base packages, some of which are meta: > >> > >> kde plasma6-sddm-kcm sddm virtualbox-guest-additions xorg > >> > >> Beyond initial installations: with 4 G swap enabled, I repeatedly > >> tested forced reinstallation of all packages, > >> > >> pkg upgrade -fUy > >> > >> 1077 packages, 1886 steps. Success. > >> > >> ---- > >> > >> With swap disabled, which I would not recommend: > >> > >> - reinstallation failed, switch from ttyv1 to ttyv2 was > >> impossible, and so on, so I attempted a shut down > >> <https://i.imgur.com/RftLGMu.png> > >> > >> - shut down failed > >> > >> - following a forced stop of the computer, SDDM and the > >> desktop environment were unsable (pkg issue 2441, > >> second incident this morning). > > > > > > It's big enough to install.. but i have lxte + terminal + firefox with 4 > tabs open and I routinely run out of memory and swap heavily. I have a 4GB > Chromebook. > Just a wild guess, but I suspect ZFS might be eating your memory. > You could try something like setting: > vfs.zfs.arc.max to half of your ram and see what happens? > > You probably don't want to do this, but it would be interesting to > see what happens if you use UFS. > (Personally, I'd never use ZFS for a root fs, but that's just me.) > > rick > > > > > So one can run in 128MB for light tasks and careful kernel tuning, 512MB > is a more realistic minimum since it lets you install and update. But for X > it's flipped: you need 2G to install but closer to 4G or 8G to run a > complete, but on the lean side, X11 system. > > > > Warner > >> > >> > > -- brandon s allbery kf8nh allber...@gmail.com
