Ram for GUI

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Ram for GUI
started by: spotslayer

Posted by spotslayer on June 29 2005,01:17

Hi all, I have been given an old laptop. I had posted yesterday asking for help mistakenly thinking I had a X configuration problem. I have hacked at it for a while now and have not had any luck getting a GUI working. This prompts this question. What is the minimum amount of RAM that will run a GUI? I have command line install working fine.

I am not sure I am posting in the right forum, but since this computer is a laptop I chose here.

What is the least amount of RAM that will run a GUI in a frugal install? What is the least amount of RAM that will run a GUI in a HD install?

David

Posted by cbagger01 on June 29 2005,16:31

Realistically, the minimum is

16MB of RAM + a 32MB swap file or swap partition.

I would recommend a minimum swap size of 64MB, though.

Posted by clivesay on June 29 2005,18:20

When X is up the ram usage about right at 16mb so you will have X but won't be doing much without using swap. Definitely don't try opening Firefox on that beast

Use dillo if yuo are on the web.

Chris

Posted by spotslayer on June 29 2005,22:34

Thanks for your input guys. Would these numbers be for a frugal install or a HD install? It seems like a frugal may take more. I have been trying to make a 486DX with 24m ram work with a frugal, but have not been able to do it. I get to the comand line great and all is good. When I try to startx, things chug and churn but then just stop with a black screen. I have tried to use XFree86 dsl, there is a prebuilt driver for it. I get an error that there xfree86 is not found. I think it is looking in /usr/bin/somthing (don't exactly remember), it is not found. Any thoughts??

David

Posted by cbagger01 on June 30 2005,02:09

Frugal install uses slightly more RAM than HD install, but these numbers are good for both methods.

For xfree86.dsl , read the info file and see if someone here can fill in any missing details either on the forums or on IRC.

Posted by spotslayer on June 30 2005,12:06

Thank's for your input cbagger01!!

I have read the info file. I have installed XFree86 on a couple of other computers. This is the first time I had seen that error. The problem does not lie with XF86 however. I have exactly the same results with the two options that are available with xsetup.sh. Idid a W95 install , just to make sure I did not have any hardware probs. That install worked. I think when I get home from work this evening I will give a HDinstall a shot. Maybe this laptop just does not have enough resource for a frugal install. I may need to find more ram for it.

David

p.s I have a256m swap file.

Posted by clivesay on June 30 2005,13:38

Did you try booting with fb800x600 or fb640x480 for framebuffer mode? Using the xf86.dsl file is probably not a good idea since it will eat up ram. I tried using xfree on an old toshiba with 48mb ram and it didn't leave much room in ram for anything else.

Good luck

Chris

Posted by spotslayer on June 30 2005,22:37

Thank's for the support Chris. I have tried that. When I do I get this error.

modprobe: modprobe: Can't locate module fb0
XIO: fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ": 0.0" after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.

I tried one of the scripts that build a xserver from current settings and get complaints that screen0 can't be found. I put things aside for a while before I start hacking at it again. I know it has to work. I'll buy more memory if I have to, but I'm not going down without a fight.

David