Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 12:51:53AM +0100, Riccardo Mottola wrote: Hi Chris, Chris Bee wrote: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +, Miod Vallat wrote: The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) Right :) well, it is for fun of course. I too am playing with NetBSD on a ThinkPad 600E and OpenBSD on an Omnibook 800. You have a fine machine, why let it get dust? those old boxen have sometimes a charme newer don't have, a solid feel and for example older ThinkPads a marvellous keyboard. I use mine to hack a bit and to telnet/ssh around.. ... My OmniBook has 32MB with OpenBSD 5.4 generic is usable command-line, however while starting Xorg now works, it is unusable, totally swap-bound. ... Riccardo After some searching around on eBay, I'm surprised to find that there is lots of old RAM floating around. I have taken a look at my ThinkPad and I do have several RAM expansion slots, meaning I won't have to throw this laptop away, and could even upgrade the RAM to 64 MB, meaning I should be able to run OpenBSD 5.4, and probably NetBSD (but I like OpenBSD more on my laptops). Perhaps I was too quick to dismiss this laptop. I'll still need to get a new one, though, I don't think this one would be good for movies or web browsing, but it looks like I will be able to use it for work (programming in C, reading emails etc). I have actually gotten X to start on my laptop, and it isn't completely unusable if I just run a single xterm. This is all on 7 year old software (OpenBSD 4.0), but from what you have said, it seems possible on 5.4. Thanks for the advice, there seem to be few stories of 5.4 on old laptops, probably due to how recent 5.4 is. It's nice to know it's actually possible and has been done. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 08:39:45PM -0800, Constantine A. Murenin wrote: On 22 December 2013 14:45, Chris Bee anommin...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +, Miod Vallat wrote: I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. [...] I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. [...] Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) There's an old tool called `dmassage` (in ports since 3.9) that may offer some help in building a smaller kernel for your situation. http://ports.su/sysutils/dmassage Cheers, Constantine. Very interesting, this will come in handy. I managed to find a 16 MB RAM module, bringing my RAM total to 32 MB. Installed 5.4 and boots fine, no problems. X doesn't work due to a lack of RAM causing swapping (which slows the laptop greatly), but maybe dmassage will help get rid of some device drivers and help the situation. Thanks for your help. [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. The install from the floppy54.fs image went well, no problems. When the machine boots up for the first time, SSH key generation takes an hour (the laptop is very slow) but then the laptop hangs after Starting RPC Daemons:.. I left the laptop on for 12 hours at this stage and it did not change. Is it possible to get 5.4 to run on this machine? I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. Should I install an earlier release which requires less RAM? I want to use this laptop for light text editing and checking emails, I realise that it may not be possible to get X to work. Following is a dmesg from a floppy54.fs diskette. Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. OpenBSD 5.4 (RAMDISK) #35: Tue Jul 30 12:22:02 MDT 2013 dera...@i386.openbsd.org:/usr/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/RAMDISK cpu0: Intel Pentium (P54C) (GenuineIntel 586-class) 133 MHz cpu0: FPU,V86,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,MCE,CX8 real mem = 16314368 (15MB) avail mem = 11505664 (10MB) mainbus0 at root bios0 at mainbus0: AT/286+ BIOS, date 11/01/96, BIOS32 rev. 0 @ 0xfda60 apm0 at bios0: Power Management spec V1.2 pcibios0 at bios0: rev 2.1 @ 0xfdaa0/0x800 pcibios0: pcibios_get_intr_routing - function not supported pcibios0: PCI IRQ Routing information unavailable. pcibios0: PCI bus #4 is the last bus bios0: ROM list: 0xc/0x8000 cpu0 at mainbus0: (uniprocessor) cpu0: F00F bug workaround installed pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1 (bios) pchb0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0 Intel 82437MX rev 0x02 pcib0 at pci0 dev 1 function 0 Intel 82371FB ISA rev 0x02 pciide0 at pci0 dev 1 function 1 Intel 82371FB IDE rev 0x02: DMA, channel 0 wired to compatibility, channel 1 wired to compatibility wd0 at pciide0 channel 0 drive 0: IBM-DCRA-22110 wd0: 16-sector PIO, LBA, 2016MB, 4128768 sectors wd0(pciide0:0:0): using PIO mode 4, DMA mode 2 pciide0: channel 1 ignored (disabled) TI PCI1130 CardBus rev 0x04 at pci0 dev 2 function 0 not configured TI PCI1130 CardBus rev 0x04 at pci0 dev 2 function 1 not configured vga1 at pci0 dev 3 function 0 Trident TGUI 9660 rev 0xd3 wsdisplay0 at vga1 mux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation) isa0 at pcib0 isadma0 at isa0 com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8/8 irq 4: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo com1 at isa0 port 0x2f8/8 irq 3: ns16550a, 16 byte fifo pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60/5 pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot) pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0 npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0/16: reported by CPUID; using exception 16 fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0/6 irq 6 drq 2 fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec pcic0 at isa0 port 0x3e0/2 iomem 0xd/16384 pcic0 controller 0: Intel 82365SL rev 1 has sockets A and B pcmcia0 at pcic0 controller 0 socket 0 pcmcia1 at pcic0 controller 0 socket 1 ep1 at pcmcia1 function 0 3Com Corporation, 3C589D, TP/BNC LAN Card Ver. 2a port 0x340/16, irq 9: address 00:10:4b:f7:fa:f0, utp/aui/bnc (default utp) pcic0: irq 5, polling enabled root on rd0a swap on rd0b dump on rd0b [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. [...] I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. [...] Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. [...] I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. [...] Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. I suggest against following this advice. Seriously, Miod saying add more momory? Clearly this is an imposter.
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +, Miod Vallat wrote: I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. [...] I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. [...] Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature which had a name of signature.asc]
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) Only on x86! Miod
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
Hi Chris, Chris Bee wrote: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +, Miod Vallat wrote: The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) Right :) well, it is for fun of course. I too am playing with NetBSD on a ThinkPad 600E and OpenBSD on an Omnibook 800. You have a fine machine, why let it get dust? those old boxen have sometimes a charme newer don't have, a solid feel and for example older ThinkPads a marvellous keyboard. I use mine to hack a bit and to telnet/ssh around.. I would not recommend using an old release! However both NetBSD and OpenBSD became fat! I don't think it is only the kernel, it looks as if every single program got a bit fatter in the years, even plain old stuff like bash or xterm. To install you have the option to put the hard-disk in a more beefed up system, install on it and then put it back. Running will be less hungry than installing perhaps. Try to find more RAM, you should have slots... 32MB will be already a bit better and with 64 you start to have something useful. Memory upgrade sites tend to agree that 64MB is possible for you. My OmniBook has 32MB with OpenBSD 5.4 generic is usable command-line, however while starting Xorg now works, it is unusable, totally swap-bound. My TP 600E which has more RAM (160 IIRC) and runs NetBSD is instead usable! I can compile, edit, send mail, run GNUstep.. everything excepti running firefox of course. However, I optimized the NetBSD kernel by installing only drivers and hardware I need (I removed all unused busses, cards I won't use, file-systems, etc). I reduced the kernel size by 33%, I did not check the actual memory footprint, but it helped. I bet you can do the same with OpenBSD, but keep your old kernel as a back-up during these experiments! The other thing that really got fatter is gcc, so... if you have another machine with more RAM, do your compiles there :) Riccardo
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
I would not recommend using an old release! However both NetBSD and OpenBSD became fat! I don't think it is only the kernel, it looks as if every single program got a bit fatter in the years, even plain old stuff like bash or xterm. ^ It is a bit hard to consider those our fault. What has gotten a bit fat is the kernel, but that is due to more device drivers, which people surely don't want us to remove. But back to userland. Let's just look at libc.so from 2001 to present: textdatabss dec hex 360448 32768 179080 572296 8bb88 libc.so.12.6 376832 32768 179400 589000 8fcc8 libc.so.12.7 376832 32768 179488 589088 8fd20 libc.so.13.0 380928 32768 179752 593448 90e28 libc.so.13.1 380928 32768 179752 593448 90e28 libc.so.13.3 405504 32768 182520 620792 978f8 libc.so.15.0 405504 32768 182572 620844 9792c libc.so.16.0 405504 32768 182588 620860 9793c libc.so.16.1 405504 32768 182928 621200 97a90 libc.so.16.3 409600 32768 185404 627772 9943c libc.so.17.1 409600 32768 185412 627780 99444 libc.so.17.3 409600 32768 185420 627788 9944c libc.so.17.4 409600 32768 185556 627924 994d4 libc.so.17.5 409600 32768 185612 627980 9950c libc.so.17.6 409600 32768 185836 628204 995ec libc.so.17.7 417792 32768 186180 636740 9b744 libc.so.17.8 417792 32768 186196 636756 9b754 libc.so.18.0 417792 32768 186208 636768 9b760 libc.so.19.0 434176 32768 186220 653164 9f76c libc.so.20.1 434176 32768 185964 652908 9f66c libc.so.20.2 434176 32768 185964 652908 9f66c libc.so.20.3 438272 32768 189552 660592 a1470 libc.so.21.0 442368 32768 189556 664692 a2474 libc.so.21.1 462848 32768 189912 685528 a75d8 libc.so.21.2 471040 32768 190152 693960 a96c8 libc.so.23.1 471040 32768 190152 693960 a96c8 libc.so.23.2 475136 32768 190300 698204 aa75c libc.so.23.3 483328 36864 186268 706460 ac79c libc.so.24.0 491520 36864 186648 715032 ae918 libc.so.24.2 491520 36864 186648 715032 ae918 libc.so.24.4 491520 36864 186888 715272 aea08 libc.so.24.5 491520 36864 187036 715420 aea9c libc.so.25.0 495616 36864 187216 719696 afb50 libc.so.25.1 503808 36864 187452 728124 b1c3c libc.so.25.2 503808 36864 187452 728124 b1c3c libc.so.25.3 516096 36864 187712 740672 b4d40 libc.so.25.4 516096 36864 190304 743264 b5760 libc.so.26.0 516096 36864 190328 743288 b5778 libc.so.26.1 520192 36864 190332 747388 b677c libc.so.26.2 520192 36864 190344 747400 b6788 libc.so.27.0 520192 36864 190384 747440 b67b0 libc.so.27.2 520192 36864 190272 747328 b6740 libc.so.27.3 520192 36864 190400 747456 b67c0 libc.so.28.0 524288 36864 190408 751560 b77c8 libc.so.28.1 524288 36864 190448 751600 b77f0 libc.so.28.2 524288 36864 190516 751668 b7834 libc.so.28.3 528384 36864 189820 755068 b857c libc.so.28.5 528384 36864 189820 755068 b857c libc.so.28.6 528384 36864 189836 755084 b858c libc.so.28.7 528384 36864 189844 755092 b8594 libc.so.28.8 548864 36864 190152 775880 bd6c8 libc.so.29.0 569044 35028 196684 800756 c37f4 libc.so.29.1 578562 35096 196684 810342 c5d66 libc.so.30.0 577412 33240 125808 736460 b3ccc libc.so.30.1 578038 33196 125776 737010 b3ef2 libc.so.30.3 580322 33056 125772 739150 b474e libc.so.31.0 579678 32672 126056 738406 b4466 libc.so.32.0 576538 31460 125704 733702 b3206 libc.so.33.0 577902 31376 125608 734886 b36a6 libc.so.34.1 571351 31572 119208 722131 b04d3 libc.so.34.2 577091 31376 119136 727603 b1a33 libc.so.35.1 583570 32024 119264 734858 b368a libc.so.37.0 593123 32404 124544 750071 b71f7 libc.so.38.1 577053 14468 124672 716193 aeda1 libc.so.38.2 577898 14496 124672 717066 af10a libc.so.38.4 582696 14468 124512 721676 b030c libc.so.39.0 581622 14472 124512 720606 afede libc.so.39.1 581714 14472 124512 720698 aff3a libc.so.39.2 581570 14472 124512 720554 afeaa libc.so.39.3 581570 14472 124512 720554 afeaa libc.so.40.0 586894 14480 135172 736546 b3d22 libc.so.40.3 584440 14516 135140 734096 b3390 libc.so.41.0 585460 14536 135140 735136 b37a0 libc.so.42.0 585902 14540 135140 735582 b395e libc.so.43.0 587519 14560 135140 737219 b3fc3 libc.so.44.0 587994 14560 135140 737694 b419e libc.so.45.0 587276 14532 143460 745268 b5f34 libc.so.47.0 588134 14564 143460 746158 b62ae libc.so.48.0 611078 15132 140100 766310 bb166 libc.so.49.0 613574 15200 149604 778378 be08a libc.so.50.0 618361 15208 149604 783173 bf345 libc.so.50.1 619591 15236 149892 784719 bf94f libc.so.51.0 619571 15236 149892 784699 bf93b libc.so.51.1 621095 15172 149892 786159 bfeef libc.so.52.0
Re: 5.4 on a ThinkPad 760EL
On 22 December 2013 14:45, Chris Bee anommin...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 06:40:28PM +, Miod Vallat wrote: I'm trying to install 5.4 on an old ThinkPad 760EL and running into some trouble, probably due to how little RAM it has - 16 MB. [...] I have read INSTALL.i386 and it says that I need at least 32 MB of RAM for 5.4. [...] Apologies if there is something obvious I should be doing. The obvious thing you should do is to add more memory to this system. The 5.4 i386 GENERIC kernel is huge and eats more than half the physical memory, and then the data structures it creates aren't free. There is basically no free memory for userland to run, and your system is swap-bound, hence horribly slow, as you have noticed. Your available options are: - run an old release, which fits in 16MB. I doubt anything = 4.5 will fit in 16MB, so you'd use a 5+ years old, unsupported, release. - build a stripped-down kernel on another 5.4 system and run it on your ThinkPad. This ought to work, but your kernel will not be supported, so if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces. - add more memory to your system. Really. It will help. Can't you see your laptop looking at you with puppy dog eyes? - get a beefier laptop. Anything with more memory will do. Miod I have installed 4.0 and while it does work, even such an old release is barely usable. I'm not too keen on the idea of using such unsupported, possibly unstable software on my laptop, anyway. I suppose the only option is to buy a newer laptop, like you said. There are plenty of good suggestions floating around, most of which can be had for tens of dollars on eBay. OpenBSD is getting so bloated these days, it requires so much RAM :) There's an old tool called `dmassage` (in ports since 3.9) that may offer some help in building a smaller kernel for your situation. http://ports.su/sysutils/dmassage Cheers, Constantine.
