200 MB RAM FreeBSD Desktop

I remember using a PS/2 model 80 to run OS/2. It had a full graphical desktop, all kinds of software ran on it, editors, compilers, word processor, graphics, tcp/ip, etc.. It ran on a 386 cpu and had 8 MB RAM. My memory told me it had a 486... but wikipedia says a 386, so I think my memory is wrong. Of course that was before web browsers were a thing. The machine itself was built like a tank and very expensive, like all their kit. OS/2 had real multi-threading and pre-emptive multi-tasking, but unfortunately for ibm MS already owned the PC market and ibm had already lost control and was really unable to break in, especially given their daft policy to begin with of trying to sell you a very expensive, non-standard MCA bus PC to run it on; I think it took them a year to two before they decided to allow OS/2 to run on non-MCA PC's.. The OS/2 software was good though, windows didn't really catch up technically until they brought NT out, or maybe later than that.

View attachment 25003

Software seems to expand to fill the available hardware capacity... there has to be a "moores law" type rule for that.
My first real computer was a also a PS/2 Model 80! Mine came with a *MASSIVE* 100 MB ESDI hard disk with DOS 3.30 installed.

At first I thought I'd been cheated because when I ran dir it showed that the C: drive only had 32MB. Eventually I discovered that that version of DOS could not handle such large partitions, and that I would have to create four partitions to be able to access the whole disk.

Happy days!
 
[Role play]
Hello, I'm in my twenties. I was thinking about using FreeBSD, but I see in this thread that it's for uncs.

Vocabulary sheet:
Unc: Old-timer (from "uncle").
 
I have a bhyve VM with 256m for kdc, but before freebsd-update I have to restart it with 1G.

Code:
  535 root          1  20    0    24M  7460K select   0:03   0.00% krb5kdc
  549 root          1  20    0    16M  4444K select   0:02   0.00% kadmind

For my diploma thesis in 95 I ran Linux with 2m ram, X11, emacs, latex, g++ (but only one at a time).
 
[Role play]
Hello, I'm in my twenties. I was thinking about using FreeBSD, but I see in this thread that it's for uncs.

Vocabulary sheet:
Unc: Old-timer (from "uncle").
Maybe I can learn a lot from listening to those "uncs" 😁
It wasn't really very long ago that they were 20, too...
 
Not desktop, but Raspberry pi Zero 2 with 15.0.2 idle after installation:

Code:
weberjn@zero2:~ $ top -b
last pid:  3650;  load averages:    0.00,    0.00,    0.00  up 0+13:13:04    07:47:06
25 processes:  1 running, 24 sleeping
CPU:  0.0% user,  0.0% nice,  0.0% system,  0.0% interrupt, 99.9% idle
Mem: 5264K Active, 28M Inact, 110M Wired, 34M Buf, 282M Free
Swap: 852M Total, 852M Free

  PID USERNAME    THR PRI NICE   SIZE    RES STATE    C   TIME    WCPU COMMAND
 3635 weberjn       1   0    0    23M    11M select   3   0:00   0.10% sshd-session
 1903 root          1   0    0    13M  2312K select   0   0:04   0.00% powerd
 1895 ntpd          1   0    0    24M  7628K select   2   0:03   0.00% ntpd
 2009 root          1   0    0    13M  2600K nanslp   0   0:00   0.00% cron
 1382 root          1   0    0    23M  9380K select   0   0:00   0.00% wpa_supplicant
 1769 root          1   0    0    13M  2932K kqread   3   0:00   0.00% syslogd
 3632 root          1  11    0    23M    10M select   3   0:00   0.00% sshd-session
 1482 root          1   0    0    14M  4152K select   0   0:00   0.00% devd
 3636 weberjn       1   0    0    13M  3300K wait     2   0:00   0.00% sh
 1968 root          1   0    0    22M  9752K select   1   0:00   0.00% sshd
 1772 root          1   0    0    13M  2840K select   0   0:00   0.00% syslogd
 3650 weberjn       1   1    0    14M  3220K CPU0     0   0:00   0.00% top
 2028 root          1  59    0    13M  2348K ttyin    3   0:00   0.00% getty
 2031 root          1  59    0    13M  2348K ttyin    3   0:00   0.00% getty
 2036 root          1  59    0    13M  2340K ttyin    1   0:00   0.00% getty
 2035 root          1  59    0    13M  2348K ttyin    3   0:00   0.00% getty
 2030 root          1  59    0    13M  2344K ttyin    2   0:00   0.00% getty
 2033 root          1  59    0    13M  2352K ttyin    0   0:00   0.00% getty
 
I noticed they don't appear to have a web browser in that setup... try running a browser in that footprint; well, apart from 'links', maybe 🤨

I just tried Netsurf browser with my https://vermaden.wordpress.com/ page loaded - additional 83 MB RAM used. Not great. Not terrible.


vermaden_2026-02-13_22-18-26.png
 
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