[rescue] OS for low memory machine

[Dave McGuire]

On July 5, Joshua D. Boyd wrote:
> I have an SS2, which I trying to get going (I need either a CD-ROM or boot
> server, both of which are being troublesome).  It has some hard drive
> space (it can easily be expanded if need be), and 40megs of ram.  Well I
> originally was thinking SunOS for historical reasons, but things changed
> and I don't want SunOS on this machine for the same reason anymore.  So,
> then I was thinking NetBSD because it is fast and powerful, and happy with
> not much memory.  However, things change again, and now I want an FDDI
> card in this machine, which seems to mean going back to an official Sun
> operating system, but I also want to do real work on the machine
> (specifically, run one or more web servers and postgres database for
> developmental work).  So, should I go with SunOS (the machine won't be
> directly exposed to the internet, but rather certain ports for SSH, and
> and web servers will be portmapped), or a Solaris?  I'm pretty sure that
> Solaris 7 and 8 would be unacceptable on only 40megs, but what about 2.51
> or 2.6?

  Josh...if 40MB is "low memory" to you, then you've definitely been
stuck in the PeeCee world for FAR too long.  I know you hack IRIX
stuff as well; they too are very guilty of the "using so much memory
it's ridiculous" method of operation.  40MB in a SPARC running NetBSD
is about like 128-192MB in an SGI running IRIX.

  40MB in an SS2 will go a long, long way with an efficient OS like
one of the BSDs.  It will have no problem handling the web server
stuff, and postgres should do ok on there as well.

  I would definitely avoid SunOS due to cruftiness, and Solaris due to
bloat.  A nice NetBSD installation with a trimmed-down kernel will
do amazing amounts of work on that machine.

> Or maybe, I should just find an IPC type machine to take the FDDI card (I
> need a machine to bridge from the FDDI network to the ethernet) and go
> back to putting NetBSD on the SS2. 

  If you have FDDI-like thoughts for any Sun hardware under anything
but Solaris, forget it.  No drivers for *anything*.

  What you need to find...and trust me on this one, I've been through
them all...is a cisco WS-C1202 ethernet switch.  It's an 8-port 10MBPS
ethernet switch with a FDDI/CDDI uplink.  It will do translational
bridging (which all switches do) AND handle IP fragmentation, which
many switches don't...and is very important if you want to keep FDDI's
nice big 4500byte MTU.

  A used WS-C1202 should be obtainable on eBay for $50-75.

> While I'm mainly a graphics guy, where I currently live, money is more
> easily made doing web stuff.  Plus, there are certain web services that I
> need for myself.  Specifically, my bookmarks (currently managed with a
> perl CGI script and a tab delimited file on a school machine) are getting
> to be to numerous.  I want to go with something that allows me to enter my
> own keywords and comments, plus keep track of when added, and keeping a
> full text copy of all bookmarked pages for easier searching.
> 
> Plus, I want keywoard based categorization, and user management, since
> some people have been bugging me to make this a public service.

  Sounds like some cool and very non-taxing applications.  The SS2
with 40MB will do very, very well.


             -Dave McGuire