memory requirements?

[Rob]

Giorgos Keramidas wrote:
> On 2004-11-05 21:17, Jay O'Brien <jayobrien at att.net> wrote:
> 
>>Kris Kennaway wrote:
>>
>>>On Fri, Nov 05, 2004 at 08:49:56PM -0800, Jay O'Brien wrote:
>>>
>>>>I inherited a 400 MHz Pentium II with 128MB of RAM and a 20GB HD.
>>>>Is this an adequate configuration to run 5.2.1, or do I need to add
>>>>memory?
>>>
>>>It all depends what you want to do with it...it's the applications you
>>>run that take up most of the memory.  128MB is a bit on the small side
>>>if you're going to be doing memory-heavy desktop work (e.g. running
>>>mozilla, KDE, etc), but there are plenty of lighter-weight
>>>alternatives to those applications.
>>
>>Good point. I am bringing up another (very capable) machine and learning
>>as I go; I set it up with 4.10 and I now think I should be running 5.2.1.
>>It will ultimately be a mail and web server.
>>
>>I thought I would bring this old machine (inherited from my 89 yr old
>>m-i-l who passed away in August) on 5.2.1 to get a feel for it; I would
>>probably not do much more than use it as a SSH terminal to connect to
>>the other machine and as a learning tool to learn (or re-learn) unix
>>commands. It presently runs Win98SE, had a CD reader and a NIC card,
>>so I know it has working hardware.
>>
>>The bottom line is that 128MB seems adequate for FreeBSD itself?
> 
> 
> I've run 4.X versions of FreeBSD with 64 MB of physical memory and a bit of
> swap space for a long time.  If you are not hosting a heavy-traffic Apache
> with lots of dynamic content (PHP or mod_perl), memory intensive desktop GUIs
> or other stuff that can bloat the memory requirements pretty fast (as Kris
> notes that is pretty often the case with this sort of programs), 128 MB and a
> bit of swap space is probably going to be fine.

I have 4.10 running in text-mode only (no X Window installed) on a PentiumI/120 MHz
with 24/14 MB RAM/swap. It's mainly for server purpose.

Another PentiumI/150MHz with 32/32 MB RAM/swap runs 5.3. Also in text-mode only.

R.