Baslinux mailing list

[James Miller <jamtat AT mailsnare.net>]

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004, Robert Steinmetz wrote:

> What is the minimum hardware  configuration and target hardware
> configuration for BL3?

386sx with 3MB RAM, if it will be used as an xterminal, according to what
Steven said earlier.  To act as a standalone machine with a gui, I think
he said 386sx with 8MB RAM.  It requires a DOS partition, and the current
root file system is stored on a 15MB img file - so it's hard to gauge HD
size.  It's also still in major development stages, with very little in
the way of add-ons tested.  I suppose 100MB HD would be a bare minimum, if
one expects to use the BL3 machine as a standalone computer (as opposed to
just xterminal).  An xterminal, on the other hand, doesn't even really
require a HD.

The HD space question starts to raise fundamental unclarities about this
interesting little project: should there be a standalone version as well
as an xterminal version?  The question was asked earlier about the size
for the root file system img file: for a standalone computer, 30MB is
probably way too small.  For an xterminal, 15MB is way too big.  Of course
there are "disked" as well as diskless xterminals, so I suppose having the
xterminals share some of the running load by storing some apps locally
could call for a 15MB - or bigger - root filesystem file.  But then a
386sx with 4MB is going to need alot more help than it can give to run
anything remotely resembling up-to-date computing applications.  486's
could, on the other hand, share in the computing load.  We're dealing with
multiple variables here: an ever-changing minimum system target,
variations in the way an xterminal network can be set up (according to
necessities and available resources) being the main ones.

Just some thoughts.  Steven, of course, will have the definitive answers
to your questions about min system requirements.

James

PS  I looked at the uClibc page today Steven.  Are you waiting for 1.0
before trying to use it for BL purposes?  Or maybe just the next major
release, which is supposed to break binary compatibility with prior
versions of uClibc?