FreeBSD on old computers

B

BethK

I'm new to FreeBSD, but have been using Ubuntu almost exclusively since 2006.

I'm looking into FreeBSD to put on some very old computers to put into the local village hall in a tiny town, so that people can read their email when the library is not open, but someone is in the city hall.

I've got several machines that I'm making into one usable one. However, they're very slow with Ubuntu, even Lubuntu. Especially with Unity being loaded by default with Ubuntu, old machines that don't have the hardware capabilities for such graphics just choke.

I've also just created a database application for catalogs in small libraries. Most of them cost over $100K, and one for about $10K is set up to monitize the information from library patrons checkout patterns. Argh! I got it running with about a week or two of actual work.

Anyway, someone wants to use it for their small museum collection, locally. They're a small, non-profit, operating on a shoestring budget. It would probably take about 2 hours to modify the library cataloging software for museum use - it would be a simpler application.

Anyway, my real question is "Will FreeBSD meet my needs for these projects?" The questions are:
1) What are the minimum memory requirements for FreeBSD?
2) Is there a way to install MySQL on the machine itself, as some applications do not have to be on a website?
3) Is there a way to install PHP, as that's the language I have my scripts written in. They could be ported to some other language to use a database on the local machine, but I'd prefer to reuse code segments as much as possible.

I've had a suggestion for BSD or FreeBSD, from someone using their system in an entirely different way, and no concrete information. Hopefully, someone can give me more information.
 
Your problems may not be with Linux, so much as with the stuff running on top of Linux. Both FreeBSD and Linux may be able to meet your requirements, but you'll have to make concessions on how fancy the environment looks. You'll probably want some sort of generic looking "start button" task bar similar to windows which can be provided by applications like lxpanel (the panel that comes with LXDE) and a minimal window manager like Openbox. Web browsers and such on top of that will be much more heavy. I find Opera works well on a slower laptop I use. I'd give that a try.
 
No actual hardware specs are given for the "old" machines, which in FreeBSD terms are probably not that old. Software-wise, most things that are available on Linux are also available on FreeBSD, and work the same.

My experience with Ubuntu (actually, XUbuntu) is that it boots very quick but FreeBSD is faster to actually do things. That could be due to it loading and running a lot of typical Linux stuff. With tuning, it might be possible to improve that.
 
BethK said:
Anyway, my real question is "Will FreeBSD meet my needs for these projects?" The questions are:
1) What are the minimum memory requirements for FreeBSD?
2) Is there a way to install MySQL on the machine itself, as some applications do not have to be on a website?
3) Is there a way to install PHP, as that's the language I have my scripts written in. They could be ported to some other language to use a database on the local machine, but I'd prefer to reuse code segments as much as possible.

I've had a suggestion for BSD or FreeBSD, from someone using their system in an entirely different way, and no concrete information. Hopefully, someone can give me more information.
Click to expand...

2) Yes. I think it's on the main FreeBSD DVD release. I think I compiled it once, too, but that was back in the 6.2 days.

3) I don't know. I don't use PHP.

1) The big one, memory. I've gotten FreeBSD down to 41 MB at boot, and some of that is cached, but I'm running hardly anything, and I was being lazy. [The difference between my ideal `make world` and the default `make world` was only 75 MB, and that wasn't worth the extra work to me.] Likewise, I can boot Linux to a bash shell in 12 MB and have no programs to use, but that's not very useful. So here's the lazy guide:

a) Expect to use 96-128 MB for a comfortable base system (no X11), regardless of whether it's FreeBSD or Linux. With some work, you can easily shave 32 MB off of that for both systems.

b) Add 64 MB to that just to run X11 and its default twm.

c) Add more RAM to run another window manager, let's just say an extra 16-32 MB for something like fvwm or fluxbox, 96-128 MB for Xfce, 128-256 MB for GNOME 2, or 512-1024 MB for KDE.

d) Add more for each program that you want to run, and there's no minimum memory requirement for Firefox. Add the RAM, and Firefox will use it sooner or later.

What I'm trying to say here, in a long way, is that FreeBSD is great, jump on in, the water's fine. But don't be so quick to think that Linux is the problem when it sucks the life out of a PC. Blame the desktop folks, and their packages end up here on FreeBSD as well. My choice of Linux is Slackware 14.0, and I don't have the patience to try much else. I've not used Ubuntu, but I really liked Debian 6.0, but it was such a pain to upgrade to real-world new packages that I gave up on it. Debian can be used on old PCs, just start with the base system and add packages as needed, and be careful. My limit is that if a program requires Qt, it doesn't go on a PC slower than 2.8 GHz. If I'm really angry, the program doesn't get installed if it requires dbus.
 
1. 256MB is enough to do basic server stuff with FreeBSD, but it depends on workload and number of users
2. Yes, you can install MySQL
3. Yes, you can install PHP


For a desktop machine, I'd recommend 512MB-1GB of RAM or more. Any Pentium 4 or newer CPU should be more than ample (it will run on less, but Pentium 4s are going on 10 years old now). Particular applications may have other requirements.
 
Definition of "old"

Well, I've got one of my applications "up and running". The "old" machines in the school date from before 2002. I found a date of 1996 on one of them. I didn't put in specs because the answer is "various". The "best" of the bunch is a Pentium 3 runs at a little better than 760 MHZ with 128 MB of RAM. I had Lubuntu running on it, until I put a network card in from another old machine. That was a big mistake: While putting the network card in, the memory card fell out and literally crumbled. These have been stored under less-than-ideal conditions: temperatures from about -20F to +110F. Most of the rest of them are Pentium 1s and Pentium 2s, with anything from 8MB to 64 MB of RAM.

Back to "plan A" on those old machines: Recycle the precious metals in them, and give the other recyclables to a local recycler, and throw what's left in the trash. It's not like I have any money in them: I sold a single working monitor for more than the nominal sum I paid for them, mostly to get them off of the books, so they could be disposed of.

On to "plan B" for the public computer. I used a 12-year-old Pentium-4 with 256 MB of RAM. Pentium 4s have been around since 2001, when I bought this. It was a very nice machine in its day, and it's been kept under reasonable conditions. I booted it up, and Ubuntu 10.4 LTS was running on it, and was able to remember the root password. The sound card doesn't work, which is a minor problem. It just ran very slow. I uninstalled most of the optional software on it, which sped things up remarkably. I didn't want to try to re-install an operating system: I left well enough alone and just deleted the backup copies of some things I was storing on it. It's ready to go.

I can still use the other help provided here with other project: The village museum, still in its planning stages. I'm sure someone has a newer-but-still antiquated computer (which maybe they got replaced for Christmas), they'd be willing to donate. We'll still need the database and the SQL and PHP applications to keep track of what's what, where it came from, if it's a donation or a loan, who to thank or contact, etc. FreeBSD might work better for that. I've got another unused computer that isn't that old, 2007 or so, with a couple of GB of memory and a reasonable processor speed that I can develop it on.

I appreciate all of the answers.
 
Have you checked the HowTo section on this forum; searched the web "freebsd AND sqlite AND php AND server AND setup" ... searched the forum for those terms? I seem to recall some threads here pertaining to similar setups, though I did not see specifically what the end result you may wish for the next project (I assume a public-facing 24/7 site?).
....
OTOH someone else may reply with a more comprehensive answer.
 
A pentium 3 should be fine also.

I had apache + squid (http proxy) + mail (sendmail + pop3 + spam assassin + SquirrelMail web client) for ~300 users running off a Pentium 2 400 with 256 MB of ram back in the day.

That was running FreeBSD 4.x and 6.x, but I don't believe the system requirements for 9.x are drastically different unless you're running ZFS.
 
jb_fvwm2 said:
Have you checked the HowTo section on this forum; searched the web "freebsd AND sqlite AND php AND server AND setup" ... searched the forum for those terms? I seem to recall some threads here pertaining to similar setups, though I did not see specifically what the end result you may wish for the next project (I assume a public-facing 24/7 site?).
....
OTOH someone else may reply with a more comprehensive answer.
Click to expand...

I'll look for those things, thank you. While I'm not new to Linux, I am new to this site.

The public face of the next project (museum items, date or era of item, description, picture of item) will be hosted on a Webhosting site, or possibly through a state or county government site. We're still investigating that. Right now, the library catalog is on the Friends of the Library website, space for which I'm donating via my professionally-operated webhosting account (with Linux server :) ). That might not be feasible in the long term, but it can get set up that way. Or,it might be, depending on bandwidth. I'm developing the applications on my Ubuntu-running Linux Certified computer. Read: "No Microsoft products were harmed in the production of these applications." :e Another way of putting it is that we'll owe no royalties to Microsoft for any of its use.

We'll need a not-public set of databases for the items, and names, addresses and other personal contact information for those who have donated or loaned an item for the museum. The personal information of the donors should not be publicly available. Still, to keep track of it, a database format is by far preferable for that many items. The same non-public site would also contain financial and operating payments and receipts for the museum. That will be public information in aggregate, as presented in reports.
 
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