Baslinux mailing list

[Sindi Keesan <keesan AT iamjlamb.com>]

On Mon, 1 Jan 1990 3aoo-cvfd AT dea.spamcon.org wrote:

> Sindi Keesan wrote:
> > 
> > We did not try adding a swap file
> 
> With 4mb RAM, you should have swap.
> 
> > Anyway, why does BL3 have less free RAM than BL1 
> 
> It might not.  The kernel uses free RAM to cache data 
> (for potential use) and this makes the free RAM look
> smaller than it actually is. 


What data?  I ran 'free' immediately after booting.  How does one 
determine how much free RAM there actually is?
How much free RAM do you think there would be with BL3 if you add the RAM 
used for cache?  (not using mdacon and TTL monitor)
 
> > Does BL need more RAM to run on a newer computer?
> 
> No, but the kernel allocates RAM differently on different
> systems.  For example, on systems with plenty of RAM, the
> kernel takes more RAM for its workspace.  On systems with
> less RAM, the kernel is more economical.

I noticed that too and wondered about it.  With BL3 and 16MB RAM I got
'used 4696' or 'used 4672' without mdacon loaded.  With 4MB RAM I got used
2560 (total 2728 of the 4MB, implying kernel used the rest) and free 168.  
How come BL1 has 250 bytes free with 4MB RAM and BL3 has 168 bytes free?
Is it because of the different kernels?

 
> > In 4MB RAM I can use BL3 with kermit to telnet, no swap 
> > partition, 
> 
> That is bad advice.  Systems with 4mb RAM should always have
> swap.  
I know it is not a good idea but I just proved it was at least possible to 
compile in BL1 4MB no swap partition in real time.  Much faster with only 
one terminal and more free RAM (500 instead of 250 bytes).  Would adding 
the 250 bytes as swap space have helped as much as freeing it up as RAM?  

> 
> > but it is rather slow and clicks a lot.
> 
> Add to that:  it is potentially unstable.
> 
> > And you don't even need a swap partition.  
> 
> Please stop saying that.  You are misleading readers.
Well, for that particular source code it worked without.  For larger 
programs it might have crashed.  With swap partition it would probably be 
a lot faster.  This was only 2K of source code.

> > Would it be possible to learn to compile with BL1 using 
> > not libc5 but uClibc 
> 
> Yes.  uClibc is a C library.  It is able to handle most
> standard C soucecode.
> 
> > and if so would it work better in low RAM?  
> 
> Probably.  That's why I hope to move BL3 to uClibc.

It sounds like Denton would greatly appreciate the next version of BL3.


> > How much disk space does uClibc take up?
> 
> About half libc5.

Does it do this by simply eliminating less commonly used parts of the 
compiler (in which case maybe it would not use less RAM) or by using 
smaller versions of all the files?

> 
> Cheers,
> Steven
>