FreeBSD's minimum memory requirements.

[Nikolas Britton]

I just tested the minimum memory requirements for FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE through
2.2.9-RELEASE using VMware 5 Workstation:

FreeBSD 6.1-RELEASE:
4MB, 8MB: Dies at bootstrap loader.
12MB, 16MB: Dies while loading acpi.ko.
20MB: Boots / Successfully installed the default minimal distribution set.
Mem: 2484K Active, 1396K Iact, 6004K Wired, 680K Cache, 1984K Buf, 348K Free
Swap: 7184K Total, 2732K Used, 4452K Free, 38% Inuse


FreeBSD 5.5-RELEASE:
4MB, 8MB: Dies at bootstrap loader.
12MB, 16MB: Dies while loading acpi.ko.
20MB: Boots / Sysinstall dies after writing filesystem information.
24MB: Boots / Successfully installed the default minimal distribution set.
Mem: 2332K Active, 1196K Iact, 9468K Wired, 1136K Cache, 3008K Buf, 840K Free
Swap: 32M Total, 2748K Used, 29M Free, 8% Inuse


FreeBSD 4.11-RELEASE:
4MB: Dies at bootstrap loader.
8MB: Dies while mounting root filesystem.
12MB: Boots / Successfully installed the default minimal distribution set.
Mem: 1900K Active, 1408K Iact, 2896K Wired, 472K Cache, 1120K Buf, 308K Free
Swap: 32M Total, 2576K Used, 29M Free, 7% Inuse


FreeBSD 3.5.1-RELEASE:
4MB: Dies at bootstrap loader.
8MB: Boots / Sysinstall dies while extracting files.
12MB: Boots / Successfully installed the default minimal distribution set.
Mem: 712K Active, 3780K Iact, 2092K Wired, 2024K Cache, 809K Buf, 520K Free
Swap: 29M Total, 29M Free


FreeBSD 2.2.9-RELEASE:
4MB: Boots / Sysinstall dies while probing devices.
8MB: Boots / Successfully installed the default minimal distribution set.
Mem: 3764K Active, 432K Iact, 1472K Wired, 244K Cache, 420K Buf, 184K Free
Swap: 42M Total, 64K Used, 42M Free

I also did a minimum disk space study using FreeBSD 6.0-RELEASE back in January:
* 1st column of numbers are from the VM disk image file, outside
FreeBSD. This is significant because it records the total disk space
FreeBSD needed *during* install.
* 2nd column is from inside FreeBSD with "du -m" after install.
* All numbers reported in megabytes.

Distribution Sets:
Developer               918     741
X-Developer             1080    882
Kern-Developer          526     427
X-Kern-Developer        690     568
User                    393     319
X-User                  560     461
Minimal                 183     156

Extrapolated Results:
Ports System            283     270
GNOME-Lite              688     655
KDE-Lite                879     864
X.Org Default Install   164     143
X.Org Full Install      177     158
Linux Binary Compat.    255     127
Sys Sources + Proflibs  392     315
Kern Sources + Proflibs 133     109

Miscellaneous Sets:
X-User (All X.Org)      572     476
X-User + GNOME-Lite     1247    1115
X-User + KDE-Lite       1438    1323
Minimal + Ports System  466     425
Minimal + Linux Compat. 438     282



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