Confirmed: 5.3 installation do not work with 16 MB RAM

[whitevamp]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ramiro Aceves" <ea1abz at wanadoo.es>
To: "freebsd-questions-en" <freebsd-questions at FreeBSD.org>
Sent: Tuesday, January 11, 2005 2:22 AM
Subject: Confirmed: 5.3 installation do not work with 16 MB RAM


> Hello FreeBSD friends.
>
> In previous post I told you that I was unable to install FreeBSD 5.3 in an 
> old Pentium 100 MHz and 16 MB RAM, with the three floppies (FreeBSD 4.10 
> installs well). After the daemon screen, the system rebooted just before 
> loading the kernel. That strange behaviour made me try everything at the 
> boot loader prompt along several weeks, without success. In the floppies 
> directory of the 5.3 installation CDROM states that FreeBSD can be 
> installed with at least 8MB RAM:
>
> ************************
> 1.2 Hardware Requirements
>
>    FreeBSD for the i386 requires a 486 or better processor to install and 
> run(although FreeBSD can run on 386 processors with a custom kernel) and 
> at least 8 megs of RAM to install and 7 megs to run.
> ***************************
>
> I read on the internet that some people could not install FreeBSD 5.3 in 
> 16 MB, needing as much as 24 MB to success. I think I have confirmed that. 
> A couple of days before, I received from a friend another "fast machine" 
> ;-), it was a pentium 75 MHz with 32 MB RAM. I tried to remove the memory 
> bank from the pentium75 to the pentium100, but this kind of memory did not 
> work on the later one.( it did not like EDO RAM). :-(
>
> So I installed FreeBSD 5.3 on the Pentium 75 machine flawlessly, 
> everything went fine. Then I removed two 8MB banks, so that the machine 
> was 16 MB RAM. I tried the install floppies, and YES!!!, it rebooted 
> before the kernel load.
>
> So FreeBSD can not be  installed with floppies and 16 MB RAM. I needs 
> more. How much? I do not know, 32MB work here, but I can not test 24 MB.
>
> I think the files on the manuals should be corrected to avoid this kind of 
> issues.
>
> Whell, that is  the story, although I have not been able to get Xorg work 
> on this machine, but you will know that in the next post to the list.
>
> Thanks
> Ramiro Aceves
>
snip
i two had the same issues of not getting freebsd 4.9 , 4.10 or 5.3 installed 
and running with 16 meg of ram on an old 233 box that i whanted to use as a 
firewall/router .. so i put 32 in it and it works just fine with 5.3-stable