Fedora HW requirements

[Dan Smith]

> I don't think so. If you check the specs page it is divided into to areas
> Text-mode and Graphical. I think this divison is perfectly OK, and I was
> mainly pointing at recommended stuff. The recommendation for graphical
> install as PII400 with 256MB it's really not something I would recommend to
> anybody for Fedora GUI usage. I am perfectly fine with the text-mode
> minimums correspondig to server usege, where we can get to something as weak
> as "you need i686" or higher procesor.

Actually the installer will fail saying not enough RAM.  In my
particular case I planned to run the machines headless and probably
would not even run X. I never even got the option to install.

Actually I got good GUI performance out of such a beast using FC5 for
a time. Was a few years back but that machine as long as I didn't over
tax it or try to run lots of servers on it was perfectly fine for web
browsing, email, even games. My ex-gf used it as her personal machine
for a couple years till the CPU failed.


To address Karsten's many good points.

>* How do we define a minimum set of hardware that is realistic?

That is a hard question. There are tons of P2s still out there and
running. However what about a museum piece early Pentium or even
something like a 486DX 2 66. I have many fond memories of a machine
that ran that chip. I think I still have the chip around somewhere
LOL.

As a solution I propose a 10 year rule. Anything older than 10 years
will require special after market parts to work. The BIOS won't
address modern hardware and the likelyhood of a machine that age
continueing to function at a uesful degree is minimal.  So in 2009 we
can set the mark at the common low end machine of 1999. Which would be
about 64, maybe as few as 32  megs of ram, 2 gigs of drive space. The
drivers for such a beast should already be written and I'll go out on
a limb and believe that the kernel where it talks to drivers is not
changed enough to need to rewrite ancient drivers.

So would 32 megs be enough to do anything useful? You have to assume a
firewall, kernel, network drivers and network software like SSH.
Trying to run a web server or database on that would be pointless.
This would be purely as a bastion host,  DOS emulator machine, data
server or other uses like that.

That would be for the light weight spin. What I am having a hard time
understanding is why it's not included with the normal distro. All the
components are there right? The kernel is custom compiled anyway
right? So it's just another option on the CDs/DVD right/?  Instead of
just failing to install wouldn't it be reasonable to add a few lines
of code that asks you if you want the light weight install instead?


>* Who is doing that testing already and can tell us?

Good question. I have no answer on that. I'd be willing to help test
out as long as my older machines stayed alive. They are usually
thousands of hours above their MTF and I've found that they usually
don't last all that long after I revamp them. Usually by scrapping
multiple ancient machines and for a Franken machine that can handle
min specs to run Fedora.  For a time I upgraded machines every few
years and thus had an extensive array of parts. I can scrounge around
at garage sales and try to find working ancient machines but my spare
parts list is fast dwindling.

>* Or is no one?  It's very telling that no one has bothered to update
> this content in a long time.  Fedora Docs relies upon the developer
> experts to tell us those numbers. David Woodhouse had helped keep
> the PowerPC side up to date for a long time, for example.

I think that is the disconnect. The developers are usually running
higher end machines. No such thing as enough computing power back when
I was in the code mines.  Far as I know Fedora is a testing distro in
itself. Fedora users braving the new for RHEL users and for the Linux
community in general when it comes to innovations put out by Red Hat.
We get it first but we are also each and every one of us a tester by
the use of Fedora. So it works on their machines, they move it to beta
where it works on those with a thirst for cutting edge then it goes
out. Release notes are written before widespread adoption and rarely
adjusted from the feedback.

Most folks who try it and get an error just either had more RAM or
abandon the effort. I didn't report the error with the distro I tried.
Didn't even read the release notes, just assumed that Linux of any
flavor would scale down to an older machine like that. Since I planned
to run it headless I didn't think Ram would be a big issue. When it
failed I just put it back on the shelf until I could mess with it
later. Might even just run Knoppix on it since Knoppix ran fine. I
rarely reboot so hand configuring the nic cards wouldn't be a big deal
aside from hooking a monitor too it each time the power went out or I
had to replace a failed component. I think I'm typical of Linux users
who are spoiled by the scalibility of Linux. Over the years I've taken
many obsolete machines and gotten 2 or 3 good years of use out of them
as specialized servers of some sort.

> It is possible to install Fedora in a very small footprint on slower
 >hardware with less memory.  However, standard Fedora desktop and DVD
 >installations are likely to require faster hardware with more
> memory.

Again I ask why a separate distro if all the components are already there?