freeBSD for i486

  • Thread starter Thread starter harsha godavari
  • Start date Start date
H

harsha godavari

Recent versions of freeBSD are getting bloated and seem to require more
resources and faster CPUs.

There are plenty of i486's and early pentiums being tossed into landfill sites.
For an average Joe Smoe (Thats me) doing a little wordprocessing, some email and
a bit of web surfing (google mainly), such systems are adequate. So..

Is there a version/fork of freeBSD optimised for a 486 system?

Regards
hg.
 
Recent versions of freeBSD are getting bloated and seem to require more
resources and faster CPUs.
Click to expand...

The FreeBSD version 2.2.9 ISO was just 138 megabytes. Now Version 6.1
comes on two CD's, and that doesn't include umpteen gigs of ports and
packages that are available. :o)
There are plenty of i486's and early pentiums being tossed into landfill
sites. For an average Joe Smoe (Thats me) doing a little wordprocessing,
some email and a bit of web surfing (google mainly), such systems are
adequate. So..

Is there a version/fork of freeBSD optimised for a 486 system?
Click to expand...

I don't know of any specifically optimized for the 486 but some of the
older versions are still well-supported and should run well on a 486. The
ISO's have been taken off the official FTP sites but a little digging
should turn them up somewhere. Or, you might just ask around for a copy on
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc. They can probably also point you to a user
group for older versions.

Don't know the truth of it, but I heard somewhere that Dragonfly BSD
(based on FreeBSD) is lighter on the resources.
 
arachnid said:
resources and faster CPUs.

The FreeBSD version 2.2.9 ISO was just 138 megabytes. Now Version 6.1 comes on
two CD's, and that doesn't include umpteen gigs of ports and packages that are
available. :o)

sites. For an average Joe Smoe (Thats me) > doing a little wordprocessing,
some email and a bit of web > surfing (google mainly), such systems are
adequate. So..

I don't know of any specifically optimized for the 486 but some of the older
versions are still well-supported and should run well on a 486. The ISO's have
been taken off the official FTP sites but a little digging should turn them up
somewhere. Or, you might just ask around for a copy on
omp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc. They can probably also point you to a user group
for older versions.

Don't know the truth of it, but I heard somewhere that Dragonfly BSD (based on
FreeBSD) is lighter on the resources.
Click to expand...

Thank you Arachnid. I enquired on that ng and received several helpful
suggestions. They seem to think that an earlier 4.xx series might be quite
suitable.

I tried to look for the hardware requirements of the Dragonfly BSD but I could
not locate the specs. I have to go back there and do some more digging :-)

Regards
hg
 
Back
Top