Micro Core with 16 MB of RAM

[Rup]

Hi all,

I've been trying to run Micro Core v3 in a VirtualBox VM with the bare minimum of RAM to get it booting. So far, it succeeded with 28 MB, not less. The thing is, i've only 16mb to play with but can't get Micro Core booting at all with 16 MB. With anything between 16 MB and 28 MB i get a Kernel Panic.
Once booted with 28 MB (as seen in Virtual Box config), free says there is 23482 total ram and 14052 used.

I think i could strip out unneeded modules from the kernel, especially those battery/laptop-related.
My system will have an ethernet card and a 4 GB hard disk. USB support would be a plus.

Do you know where to start in my quest for a 16 MB Micro Core? The kernel ? Everything around it?

Cheers

[bmarkus]

My honest opinion that no way with 16M. It is not enough for the system and consider resource requirement of your applications too.

[hiro]

You should consider using some other distribution, loading all the os into ram is quite a step backward if you only have 16mb, don't you think?

[danielibarnes]

You'll likely need to rebuild your kernel to get it that small. The Linux Tiny project is a good place to start. Some of its tips may be outdated, so it'll take some work to sort through it all. Please let us know if you succeed, even for less than 28MB. This is very interesting to me, but I've not had the time to pursue it.

[tinypoodle]

I suspect that free shows as "used" only what's available memory, i.e not including memory usage of kernel and whatever memory is reserved for some purpose, and that is why "total" of free usually does show less than nominal RAM installed.
I had a fourmeg-box and total of free would change with size of kernel, never exceeding 2700 KB (and that with a kernel < 500 Kb).
Agreeing in spirit with bmarkus and hiro - except if you see this as an academical challenge of proof of concept.
More extended talk about what to do with a box of 16MB besides from attempting to run microcore would be in the wrong section of the forum here, i'd guess.

[ixbrian]

Would the "embed" boot code help?  Take a look at /init, I think "embed" will cut down your bootup memory requirements as the root filesystem won't be copied to a tmpfs filesystem which temporarily requires twice the memory of how big the root filesystem is from what I underestand. 

Brian

[curaga]

I have to agree, while you can get there, it will take work. Not even scatter mode will work in 16m, it's not enough ram to start udev. It will run in 20mb, but you'd still need swap to do anything useful. If you used static devices, scatter mode and removed udev, maybe MC would boot in 16mb.

Weigh in your requirements; if you don't need something recent on the base such as Microcore, you'd be much better off with a floppy distro or one designed for 4mb (basic linux?). Those ultra-low-ram ones will let your app have more free ram.

[Rup]

Thanks for your quick replies folks !

I intend to make the computer diskless and headless. I see it this way : boot from cdrom, tce-load -wi an ssh server and a web server, wget and untar the content of the website and then sleep.
There's no real purpose in this project, only to revive this old hardware i found in an attic.
I chose micro core because it's modern, still in dev, and quite friendly. But as some of you said, it doesn't seem the best option given my configuration (althought it might work with some efforts).

So, i'm gonna try and find some other solution (basic linux first) best suited to my vast amount of ram and come back to micro core later.

Thanks again !

[SvOlli]

There's no real purpose in this project, only to revive this old hardware i found in an attic.

For most projects I'll take it the other way round: I ask myself what will I use this hardware for, once I've done the revive? If I can't find a suitable answer, I'll go on to do something else. Of cause there are projects that I just do for the fun of doing it, but then I'll do it as a proof of concept and go on after that.

There are so many cool things one can do and so little time, asking the "what will I do with it, when it's done?"-question helped me a lot of times.

[Rup]

Proof of concept it is good sir 

[PIRAT507]

About floppy distro's. Trinux is the best IMHO.
It loads from one floppy and is able to load the rest of the OS from the net / your ftp or http server.
Mister Franz has done a miracle.
All in RAM. Fast! booting.
I once made a netbootable version. Not very useable nowadays, as it does not support USB mice, keyboards. (new kernel needed)
Trinux has three floppies. It will fit in 16Mb of RAM, even far less.
Now I have a netbootable TinyCore. It reminds me of those good old Trinux days.
OS in RAM is the way to go!

[PIRAT507]

Trinux was made on Slackware 7.2 (nowadays 10.3 is current)

[tinypoodle]

Umm, that would be 13.1

[PIRAT507]

You are right. I made a mistake.
13.1 is right. Do excuse me please.
(I do have the iso's including sources.)
I still have 7.2 in a chroot.

[Wayne]

hello guys..
thanks for sharing information..