[wplug] comparing distros (was: iso small distros)

[mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu]

On Sun, Dec 09, 2001 at 10:56:20PM -0500, David Gerard Matthews Jr. wrote:
> While we're on the subject of comparing different small distros for
> wierd old machines, could anybody recommend the best *BSD variant for a
> 486SX?  I was digging around in my parents' attic this afternoon, and
> found my old 486 (which I thought they had given away years ago) sitting
> there all packed up.  It occurred to me that it might be fun to try some
> random OS's and distros on it, and I thought *BSD might be a good place
> to start, but I know bloody little about the BSD's and almost nothing
> about the differences between them (except that NetBSD runs on
> everything, OpenBSD's security obsessed, blah; blah.)
> The box in question has 12 MB of RAM (I don't care about X although I
> did run X on the machine a few years ago when I put RH 5 on it), a 1 gig
> HD and a 200 MB HD, and a Creative CD-ROM (does *BSD support
> non-IDE/SCSI CD's?).   It doesn't have a NIC, so a network install is
> out unless someone feels like loaning me a supported ISA NIC.
> Thanks,
> dgm
> 
They all should run on your computer, the minimum memory for FreeBSD I recall
is 5MB (without too much hassle, that is) and it's probably similar for the
others.  OpenBSD and NetBSD are much closer to each other than either is to
FreeBSD, whatever Theo says.  FreeBSD has very good support for much of
Intel-based hardware, so I would expect them to have drivers for your
CD.  Not too sure about the other two.  Feel free to check out their
respective web sites.  Why not install all 3 and try them out?  You could
even do them all at the same time, in different partitions.  None requires
more than 50MB for the base install.  Keep in mind that the BSDs have a
different view of partitioning than Linux.  You have the option of using
their "slice"-style of partitioning completely, or letting it subdivide
a normal partition into slices.  I do not remember if the "slice"
partitioning scheme is compatible between them all.

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;; Matthew Danish                         email: mdanish at andrew.cmu.edu ;;
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