I am interested in trying out FreeBSD, but my platform would have to be a sstock Optiplex GX1 with onboard 4 meg ATI AGP video, Crystal sound (not a dealbreaker - could put in a Creative Labs PCI card if needed), a PIII-450 and 128 meg RAM and a 13 gig hard drive. Would that be enough horsepower? I can run Slackware 10 on this setup all right. If more RAM would help, I could look into that as well.

Any special "gotchas" on this Dell model?

I couldn't find anything on minimum requirements, and sometimes minimum requirements get you a minimum experience.

Thanks in advance.

The Duck

Based on that info, I don't see why FreeBSD shouldn't work on that system. There is support for Crystal sound chipsets, as listed in the hardware notes for 5.3-RELEASE:


Crystal Semiconductor ( csa(4) driver)

* CS461x/462x Audio Accelerator
* CS428x Audio Controller

Is that enough processor and RAM, do you think? As I said, the Slackware ran fine for me. I even tried it with another 128 and it wasn't that much faster, if any.

Thanks!

You'll find you will get similar performance with FreeBSD as you do currently with Slackware.

I've installed FreeBSD on several same boxes. No problem with anything. Runs similar as Slackware. WindowMaker/Fluxbox works well in 128meg, KDE/Gnome work with 128meg, but you'll love how it performs with 256meg.

Just a thought, if you have some extra $, you can pickup Dells like that for about $30-$50 on ebay, depending how you catch the bid timing. I look for high volume companies with > 95% positive comments and decent warranty when I want to setup a test box. Then use ssh from my main box.

Thanks for your help. No special "gotchas" with installation is whay I wanted to hear. I will try the 128 first and upgrade as necessary. I just like those boxes, because they seem to be compatible with most things. I plan on having FBSD as the only O/S as the HD is only about 13 gig.