David Given wrote:
I have a machine with 48MB of RAM that I want to use as a server.
The OpenBSD kernel is a bit over 5MB. I assume that gets loaded into memory
and is not swappable, giving me 43MB left, which isn't a lot.
Is it worth recompiling the kernel to remove support for features I'm not
using --- IPv6, say, or the Microchannel bus --- on the principle that
reducing the size of the kernel will give more memory for doing other things,
and therefore generally speed the system up? Or will not using GENERIC cause
more problems than it's worth?
And if it is worth recompiling the kernel, can anyone recommend any
particularly big features it would be worth taking out?
Hi! My Internet firewall machine is a 486DX with 48MB of RAM and a 10GB
HD inside a plastic box. I used to recompile the kernel removing almost
everything using a tool called dmassage (google for it) which helps you
to prepare the configuration file. Anyway during the last two releases I
didn't bother compiling the kernel, my reason is that I'm not seeing a
huge difference in memory saving using a self-compiled kernel, perhaps a
couple of MB. Righ now I have 15MB of free RAM and in the worst case
(when pfstat is run) I have about 12MB free, that's enough. The main
processes that're running are: postfix + httpd + ntpd + noip2 + dnsmasq,
uptime is 90 days. This is a rock solid OS, you won't find any memory
leaks. HTH.
Regars, Jorge.
