Messages in this thread | | | From | John Bradford <> | Subject | Re: Linux-2.4.20 on a 4 MB Laptop | Date | Wed, 9 Apr 2003 17:35:00 +0100 (BST) |
| |
> > What I want to know is if this happens just because of the low memory (4MB) or > > if there is another reason for this behaviour. > > There must be another reason, I'm running a 80486/4Mb (Compaq Contura) > with 2.4.20 just fine. Even networking is present. You need lots of > swap, though. > > > What do you think: What are the minimum requirements for Linux on such a > > laptop (no X, of course, very simple setup): 8MB, 12MB? > > The very minimum? 4Mb + lots of swap. To make it closer to usable, I'd > say 8Mb. Altough, I had this setup on my Contura: Contura connects to > the main box via plip, another laptop (old Thinkpad) connects to Contura > via ppp, and Contura NATs it through the main box. Meanwhile, I could > run mutt, reading e-mail, and zile, editing some documentation. Both > from screen. And I've been logged into the machine via ssh. > > It was a bit slow, but worked. So 4Mb _is_ enough, even for running > Debian sid.
I missed the original post in this thread, but I can confirm that 2.4.18, 2.4.19, and various 2.5 kernels have worked fine on 4 and 8 MB RAM, 486 laptops here.
I demonstrated X, the Apache webserver with support for PHP, and Lynx running in 4 MB of RAM last year.
Quite a lot of useful work can be done in 8 MB RAM, with no swap, and that allows you to spin down the disk and make the batteries last longer, (on a laptop).
Have a look at:
http://grabjohn.com/low_spec.php
for some configuration suggestions.
John. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
| |