Re: Base system tarball Q [XTerminal]

[sjc@delphi.com]

On Thu, Jun 18, 1998 at 01:52:17AM -0400, Avery Pennarun wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 18, 1998 at 01:23:42AM -0400, sjc@delphi.com wrote:
> 
> > connecting to a host, once I have the IPs needed, what is the nameserver
> > needed for?
> 
> Well, you could have a nameserver entry for "xdm-server" (or something)
> which is looked up while your X-terminal boots.  This does seem pointless to
> me, but who's counting.
> 

no comment :)

> > > I've done an X terminal on a single 1.44 MB floppy.  Almost all of the stuff
> > > on the base system is unnecessary: what you really need is a simple init
> > > system (calling ifconfig/route), libc, X, XF86Config, and rgb.txt.
> > 
> > wow...I never thought it would fit on 1 floppy...then again...
> > hmm but XF86_S3V is over 2 MB :( ohg well back to NFS root :)
> 
> Ah, the joys of inordinate bloat.  This was about two years ago, before
> libc6 and egcs started doubling the size of things.

ahh that explains it...hmm someone mentiond seeing "Small X Servers" on
sunsite...

>  You may be able to
> squeeze it on anyway, if you use a compressed ramdisk.  (Note that if you
> use a ramdisk, you need more than the minimal 4 megs -- but if you use an X
> server that large, you probably need more than 4 megs anyway.)

I am now planning to use a small root disk which will then NFS mount
the rest of the system with the actual X....hmm an internally mounted
3.5" drive with a disk in it....

3.5" drives cost $20...disks are almost free (used to be free before AOL
switched to CDs..they don't seem to send disks anymore)..so..
its a slow, $20 hard drive :)

(and at only 1.44 MB..its close enough to diskless for me)

> > > That said, I've also made NFS-rooted X terminals and they're easily fast
> > > enough -- once X is loaded, there's no more "disk" access.  Mine went
> > > from zero to XDM in about 45 seconds (over an ARCnet network, which is
> > > slower than ethernet) and needed only 4 megs of RAM to run happily.
> > 
> > Nice nice...what type of systems they runnign on?
> 
> 486DX/33 or 486DX/40 with XF86_S3.  It was quite a while ago.  Nowadays they
> would look pretty slow compared to a "real" computer.  Also, I may have been
> a bit unclear above -- these really were only X terminals and accessed a
> _remote_ xdm server.  You can run a full X session in 4 megs, but you'll
> have to swap like crazy (which you currently can't do on a diskless client).

Ahhh but to quote the NFS-root HOWTO:
*  There is a patch floating around, that allows for swapping over
   NFS. It was sent to me (during a private high workload phase), but
   somehow I managed to loose the mail :(

so...it can currently be done...just need to find the patch :) 

-Steve


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