Minimum hard drive for FreeBSD with XWindows?

RonRussell · 08-15-2005, 06:06 AM

I was attempting to install FreeBSD 5.4 on a Pentium 166 with a 1.0 GB harddrive, and got error messages indicating "filesystem full". What is the minimum harddrive needed to contain FreeBSD 5.4 with a GUI, either KDE, Gnome, or one of the lighter GUIs? This old machine previously held Caldera Openlinux 2.3, with KDE, and a bit of room left over.

ingvildr · 08-15-2005, 06:15 AM

as a rough guide heres how much OpenBSD uses

Code:

(root)             100MB
/usr               250MB (no X) or 400MB (with X)
/var               25MB
/tmp               50MB
swap               32MB

phil.d.g · 08-15-2005, 06:38 AM

If you use something like fluxbox or blackbox instead of gnome/kde and restricted your installation to just what you need then you should be able to fit it within 1GB

rleesBSD · 08-15-2005, 09:47 AM

I have put various *BSD products onto old machines to extend their lives (and not waste expensive Windows licenses) I.E., I'm cheap.

When putting one of the latest flavors of *BSD w/XWindows onto a small disk, you probably cannot do it by using the regular installation program. My smallest configuration is NetBSD (with Xwindows) on a 270M drive!!! To accomplish the task, install only the bare minimum system via the regular installation program. (No Xwindows). Then, build the XWindows pieces one at a time using the ports or appropriate package system (XServer, XFonts, Window-Managers, etc).

After each piece, delete the associated source tarballs or packages in /usr/ports/distfiles (or wherever you put them) or move them to another drive if you would like to keep them. Naturally, you have to remember to remove the build junk (i.e. make clean).

While you are installing the pieces, don't install the disk hungry gnome package - instead you should install one of the "lean" window-managers such as Fluxbox or Windowmaker (my favorite).

You can use this technique to shoe-horn the *BSDs onto almost anything!