Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Fri, 19 Mar 2004 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> James wrote:
> >
> > 386sx with 3MB RAM, if it will be used as an xterminal, 
> 
> 3mb RAM is too little for an Xterminal.  With 3mb RAM
> it swaps when you move the mouse (which is not nice).
> On the other hand, 4mb RAM works surprisingly well as
> an Xterminal -- minimal swapping (after initial startup).

Would it still swap if you use an arrow mouse (keyboard instead of mouse) 
or does that use as much ram?

> > I suppose 100MB HD would be a bare minimum, if one expects 
> > to use the BL3 machine as a standalone computer 
> 
> I disagree.  The current 15mb filesystem is sufficient for
> many purposes.  For example, I am in BL3 right now, reading
> and sending mail (which for many people is the primary
> purpose of a computer).  It works pretty well, but if I 
> wanted something fancier, I could install Netscape 3.04 
> (which will fit into the current filesystem).

I have already added links-ssl (500K), lynx (1M), and kermit (2M) which 
required ncurses and zlib (another 150K).  Can't think of anything else I 
would want for online use (except a javascript browser like Netscape).

That still leaves 7M for accumulating old mails or adding ghostscript or 
xpdf or more fonts.  Maybe a console calculator or spreadsheet?  What are 
other users adding in their 10M?

Of course you can't compile too well in 10M - how much more space would 
that require?  Not just the compiler and libraries, but room for all the 
source code and object files.  I already had to compile kermit when I 
could not find a precompiled version that worked and had the feature I 
wanted.  Nobody seems to care a lot about SW3.5 now.  


> > for a standalone computer, 30MB is probably way too small.  
> 
> find/develop smaller applications.  swm and e3pi are two
> examples of what I am trying to bring together in BL3: useful 
> functionality in a very small footprint.

Don't forget Xvesa and rxvt.  And even microcom.