svn commit: r356758 - in head/usr.sbin/bsdinstall: . scripts

[Ben Woods]

On Sat, 25 Jan 2020 at 00:33, Warner Losh <imp at bsdimp.com> wrote:

> I'm happy for whatever comments we have here in the range. Maybe "ZFS
> requires at least 8GB of ram to be viable by default. Careful tuning can
> dramatically lower the amount of RAM needed." or something similar.
>
> Warner
>


Thanks Warner - I have used inspiration from your recommended text and
others to propose the following bsdinstall help text:
msg_partitioning_zfs_help="To use ZFS with less than 8GB RAM, see
https://wiki.freebsd.org/ZFSTuningGuide"
msg_partitioning_ufs_help="Menu options help choose which disk to setup
using UFS and standard partitions"

Note that both of those lines are at their maximum length (we have 78
characters to work with in order to support a standard 80 column terminal).

I think that this avoids recommending a hard limit for when ZFS can and
can't be used, but also points out cases where tuning might be required in
low RAM instances, and where to go for more information.
Noting that the very first line of the ZFSTuningGuide wiki article is
currently:
"To use ZFS, at least 1 GB of memory is recommended (for all architectures)
but more is helpful as ZFS needs *lots* of memory."

I have uploaded the phabricator review here:
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D23224

Regards,
Ben