From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: presotto@plan9.bell-labs.com
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] memory
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Date: Tue, 21 Nov 2000 08:28:57 -0500
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I was running an 8MB system until 6 months ago.  However, it
would go into swap hell if I tried to make kernels
locally.  It was only usable because I did most things were
done on a cpu server.

With 16mb, you can still run bigger screens than 640x480x8.
at 16MB on a terminal the kernel gives 60% of the memory to
the kernel.  You can make it more still if you want by
including in plan9.ini

	*kernelpercent=90

for example, to get 90%.  Of course, that leaves precious little
for processes.

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From: "Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
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Subject: [9fans] memory
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Date: Mon, 20 Nov 2000 15:48:57 -0500

The install, because it keeps the file system
in RAM, requires 32MB.  I've done an install on a 32MB
system and I was using pretty much all the memory.
As others have pointed out, that's mainly because
the image data is all kept in kernel memory, and the
compressed file system on the floppy is expanded
and kept in memory while being accessed.  
You could run a simple 640x480x8 terminal with
16MB, but I'm not sure how much can be done with
only 8MB.

The ATI video cards come with a wide range of
memory depending mainly on the age of the card.
Others have reported trying the Xpert98 but I don't
remember whether the reports were good or bad.

Russ

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