Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Julian Elischer wrote: Markus Boelter wrote: Apart from wondering how you're getting the motherboard to get past POST without RAM, I'm wondering how you'd get the bootloader and [...] The guys at Linux/OpenBIOS did some Cache-as-RAM stuff. Maybe you can also put (burn) the kernel directly into the BIOS chip and bott with that kernel. This is just an idea out of my head - nothing tested and no research done in this field. :-) A modern CPU with 4Mb of cache and no ram has more ram than my first system. If you wanted to you might be able to get FreeBSD 1.1 up in such an environment. I had FreeBSD 2.2-stable installed on an old notebook with 4 MB RAM (actually less, because ~ 0.5 MB was lost VGA mappings and registers etc.). It was very usable for simple things like text editing and as a terminal. (Just no DMA capability, so no floppies). You can access the FDC in PIO mode, no DMA necessary. It won't be very efficient, but a floppy drive is slow anyway. You'll have to access the hard disk in PIO mode, too, so that will also be slow. You'll probably want to avoid swapping / paging at all. That means that your whole working set has to fit in 4 MB (minus what the kernel needs). That'll probably be difficult, depending on what you're planning to use the machine for. Bottom line: I think it's useless. :-) It makes more sense to eliminate the hard disk instead of the RAM. And running diskless is perfectly possible (and quite easy) with FreeBSD; I've done such setups in the past. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd If Java had true garbage collection, most programs would delete themselves upon execution. -- Robert Sewell ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Oliver Fromme wrote: I had FreeBSD 2.2-stable installed on an old notebook with 4 MB RAM (actually less, because ~ 0.5 MB was lost VGA mappings and registers etc.). It was very usable for simple things like text editing and as a terminal. High end Xeons and Itaniums have 18MB - 24MB of internal L1+L2+L3 caches. That's enough to fit *and run* entire Doom 2 and similar games :) I can just imagine it... Doom2 run from the CPU caches, running at something like 10,000 FPS in 320x200 :) signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Ivan Voras wrote: Oliver Fromme wrote: I had FreeBSD 2.2-stable installed on an old notebook with 4 MB RAM (actually less, because ~ 0.5 MB was lost VGA mappings and registers etc.). It was very usable for simple things like text editing and as a terminal. High end Xeons and Itaniums have 18MB - 24MB of internal L1+L2+L3 caches. That's enough to fit *and run* entire Doom 2 and similar games :)= I can just imagine it... Doom2 run from the CPU caches, running at something like 10,000 FPS in 320x200 :) Yes, but you can do that with a normal RAM-equipped machine, so you don't need a special BIOS or special patches to FreeBSD. Just make sure that your running code set fits into the caches. Best regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing b. M. Handelsregister: Registergericht Muenchen, HRA 74606, Geschäftsfuehrung: secnetix Verwaltungsgesellsch. mbH, Handelsregister: Registergericht Mün- chen, HRB 125758, Geschäftsführer: Maik Bachmann, Olaf Erb, Ralf Gebhart FreeBSD-Dienstleistungen, -Produkte und mehr: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd If you aim the gun at your foot and pull the trigger, it's UNIX's job to ensure reliable delivery of the bullet to where you aimed the gun (in this case, Mr. Foot). -- Terry Lambert, FreeBSD-hackers mailing list. ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
If I had say a 15k rpm drive, would it be possible to configure the FreeBSD kernel to not use system memory and ONLY the hard drive for caching instructions and executing operations? Can FreeBSD be built to run on a system memory free system (can we also circumvent the system cache for that matter), if not is it very difficult to make it run on such a systemme. regardz, ~Rudy _ [EMAIL PROTECTED]% ---_ http://www.[1]rudyrockstar.com -_-__--- -- - ---CELLY--678.984.3831: RiP 1997 -2004 -AIM:rudyrockstar- --- ---- -ICQ:6636643-- --- -- -- --- -YahoO:rudyrockstar- --- - -MSN:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~!~!~!~~~!~~~~~~ _ [2]Find what you need at prices youll love. Compare products and save at MSN® Shopping. References 1. http://www.rudyrockstar.com/ 2. http://g.msn.com/8HMAENUS/2728??PS=47575 ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
2007/3/8, Rudy Rockstar [EMAIL PROTECTED]: If I had say a 15k rpm drive, would it be possible to configure the FreeBSD kernel to not use system memory and ONLY the hard drive for caching instructions and executing operations? No, probably not. Also, a 15K RPM drive still isn't very fast (compared to RAM) Can FreeBSD be built to run on a system memory free system (can we also circumvent the system cache for that matter), if not is it very difficult to make it run on such a systemme. Apart from wondering how you're getting the motherboard to get past POST without RAM, I'm wondering how you'd get the bootloader and kernel to load in a RAM-less system. You could probably do it for a system with a minimal amount of RAM and let (most) everything run in swap, but that's just going to be ridiculously slow. regardz, ~Rudy Any particular reason you're looking into doing this? Kind regards, Devon H. O'Dell _ [EMAIL PROTECTED]% ---_ http://www.[1]rudyrockstar.com -_-__--- -- - ---CELLY--678.984.3831: RiP 1997 -2004 -AIM:rudyrockstar- --- ---- -ICQ:6636643-- --- -- -- --- -YahoO:rudyrockstar- --- - -MSN:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~!~!~!~~~!~~~~~~ _ [2]Find what you need at prices youll love. Compare products and save at MSN(r) Shopping. References 1. http://www.rudyrockstar.com/ 2. http://g.msn.com/8HMAENUS/2728??PS=47575 ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Hi! Apart from wondering how you're getting the motherboard to get past POST without RAM, I'm wondering how you'd get the bootloader and [...] The guys at Linux/OpenBIOS did some Cache-as-RAM stuff. Maybe you can also put (burn) the kernel directly into the BIOS chip and bott with that kernel. This is just an idea out of my head - nothing tested and no research done in this field. :-) Cheers Markus ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Markus Boelter wrote: Hi! Apart from wondering how you're getting the motherboard to get past POST without RAM, I'm wondering how you'd get the bootloader and [...] The guys at Linux/OpenBIOS did some Cache-as-RAM stuff. Maybe you can also put (burn) the kernel directly into the BIOS chip and bott with that kernel. This is just an idea out of my head - nothing tested and no research done in this field. :-) A modern CPU with 4Mb of cache and no ram has more ram than my first system. If you wanted to you might be able to get FreeBSD 1.1 up in such an environment. (Just no DMA capability, so no floppies). Cheers Markus ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
Marcus, Thanks! A chip level loading of the core kernel would be the only way. So its not possible todo without a completly new hardware infrastructre design. - I'm wanting todo this because computers are too slow. regardz, ~Rudy _ [EMAIL PROTECTED]% ---_ http://www.[1]rudyrockstar.com -_-__--- -- - ---CELLY--678.984.3831: RiP 1997 -2004 -AIM:rudyrockstar- --- ---- -ICQ:6636643-- --- -- -- --- -YahoO:rudyrockstar- --- - -MSN:[EMAIL PROTECTED] ~~~!~!~!~~~!~~~~~~ __ From: Markus Boelter [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Devon H. O'Dell [EMAIL PROTECTED] CC: Rudy Rockstar [EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2007 15:53:18 +0100 Hi! Apart from wondering how you're getting the motherboard to get past POST without RAM, I'm wondering how you'd get the bootloader and [...] The guys at Linux/OpenBIOS did some Cache-as-RAM stuff. Maybe you can also put (burn) the kernel directly into the BIOS chip and bott with that kernel. This is just an idea out of my head - nothing tested and no research done in this field. :-) Cheers Markus _ [2]Win a Zunemake MSN® your homepage for your chance to win! References 1. http://www.rudyrockstar.com/ 2. http://g.msn.com/8HMBENUS/2743??PS=47575 ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: harddrive no memory ---FreeBSD scenario
In [EMAIL PROTECTED], Rudy wrote: A chip level loading of the core kernel would be the only way. So its not possible todo without a completly new hardware infrastructre design. - I'm wanting todo this because computers are too slow. You need to learn a little more about the parts of a computer. Perhaps go to Google groups, and read comp.arch for a couple of months, making sure you understand all of the references. Disk drives are about 6 orders of magnitude (1,000,000x) slower than DDR memory. It takes a few tens of nanoseconds to read a random address from DDR, a few tens of milliseconds to read a random address from a disk. Note that DDR isn't the fastest memory in the system, either -- there are the L1 and L2 (and sometimes L3) caches as well. -- Steve Watt KD6GGD PP-ASEL-IA ICBM: 121W 56' 57.5 / 37N 20' 15.3 Internet: steve @ Watt.COM Whois: SW32-ARIN Free time? There's no such thing. It just comes in varying prices... ___ freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-hackers To unsubscribe, send any mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
