HD Install :: 8MB of system memory - need to circumvent ramdisk



Quote (skaos @ Nov. 14 2006,05:53)
The 12 MB requirement is when using a ramdisk (like DSL's toram option) and 3 MB is for a more "normal" linux installation. And I think you need 8 MB for X.

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If it can browse the web, that will probably be adequite.

In linux you can forget graphical browsing with only 8 MB - I guess you could do it by using the text based links or lynx browsers.

According to the website, the 3MB installation runs on top of DOS, which seems abnormal to me.  I'm not sure what I'm missing.

If I can install X on 8MB, why would graphical browsing fail?  If a web page has much more than 8MB of pictures, I could see how an insane amount of swapping could make it inconvenient.  I suppose the only way to know for certain how often that would be is to set it up and try it.
Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Nov. 14 2006,09:33)
DSL frugal installation uses a ramdisk regardless - toram copies the entire 50mb DSL base to it... I wouldn't do that with <64mb of RAM.

You wouldn't do what with <64MB, frugal install or full?  

I guess the term "frugal" is a little misleading.. apparently it means frugal in terms of HDD space, but not in terms of memory.  Is it safe to assume that the full install does not use a ramdisk?
Quote (^thehatsrule^ @ Nov. 14 2006,09:33)

That's probably some bootloader issue... (ie not being installed properly)

I followed the basically same process for the frugal install as I did for the full install, so I'm not sure why only the full install would be bootable for me.  Anyway, it's no problem, because it's the full install that I want anyway (to avoid the ramdisk).
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According to the website, the 3MB installation runs on top of DOS, which seems abnormal to me.  I'm not sure what I'm missing.

I think it uses loadlin to launch linux from dos, i.e. removing all traces of dos from memory.

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If I can install X on 8MB, why would graphical browsing fail?

Because the browser, like any software, needs memory for itself. It is some time since I used Dillo but I seem to remember that it uses about 10 MB.
Quote (skaos @ Nov. 15 2006,06:15)
I think it uses loadlin to launch linux from dos, i.e. removing all traces of dos from memory.

Yup, that's correct, as I recently discovered.  Loadlin is an interesting alternative to LiLo, Grub, and XOSL.  It turns out loadlin and lilo both fail on my particular hardware, but I was able to install Basic Linux 3 ("BL3") along with XOSL, and it works quite well.  BL3 was a good suggestion.
Quote (skaos @ Nov. 15 2006,06:15)

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If I can install X on 8MB, why would graphical browsing fail?

Because the browser, like any software, needs memory for itself. It is some time since I used Dillo but I seem to remember that it uses about 10 MB.

As a test, I was able to run Win95 on this 486dx2-66 with 8MB RAM, and browse graphically.  Because I expect more from linux (it should be leaner than anything M$ would produce), I also expect to be able to browse graphically with 8MB ram.  I have not tested the theory yet, but I'm told that Links2 is a GUI browser for BL3 that will function satisfactorily (is that a word?) with 8MB ram.
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You wouldn't do what with <64MB, frugal install or full?

I was referring to toram, since 64-50 would leave you with 14.

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I guess the term "frugal" is a little misleading.. apparently it means frugal in terms of HDD space, but not in terms of memory.  Is it safe to assume that the full install does not use a ramdisk?
Yes, the debian-style traditional hd-install does not use the ramdisk.

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As a test, I was able to run Win95 on this 486dx2-66 with 8MB RAM, and browse graphically.  Because I expect more from linux (it should be leaner than anything M$ would produce), I also expect to be able to browse graphically with 8MB ram.  I have not tested the theory yet, but I'm told that Links2 is a GUI browser for BL3 that will function satisfactorily (is that a word?) with 8MB ram.
Keep in mind that DSL has enough features and flexibity for users with more powerful computers to use this distro as well - I don't think this is the same for win95 (I  even remember browing in netscape navigator in win 3.1).  As such, you can try other Linux distros - you have seemed to find one that works.  Low memory graphical browsers I've used are glinks and dillo (there's several different versions of each).
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