Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

MMAMailMagazine · 2010-10-08 14:45:37

I have a very old machine (400Mhz Celeron with 128Mb RAM).

Which would run faster Arch Linux or FreeBSD?

karol · 2010-10-08 14:51:58

Depends what will you install and how will you configure it. With e.g. dwm or some other lightweight WM, X may be workable ... until you open a graphic web browser.

I'm not 100% sure if 128 MB is enough to install Arch.

Last edited by karol (2010-10-08 14:53:36)

lagagnon · 2010-10-08 14:52:47

With just 128MB of RAM you would be limited to a very light window manager (no desktop environment) in either case. I wouldn't know which is faster, probably very similar but it wouldn't take too much time to try them both and make a proper decision.

MMAMailMagazine · 2010-10-08 14:56:10

I was thinking of using it as a web server.

I am open to suggestions on any OS. My main priority is speed and efficiency as you can see my machine is really old.

Is NetBSD faster than FreeBSD?

Last edited by MMAMailMagazine (2010-10-08 14:58:37)

brebs · 2010-10-08 15:47:37

MMAMailMagazine wrote:

My main priority is speed and efficiency

Operating systems written in assembly should be quick:

http://www.menuetos.net/
http://www.dex4u.com/

Dunno whether they have sufficient apps for you.

MMAMailMagazine · 2010-10-08 15:52:01

lol. I want to run apache web server.

brebs · 2010-10-08 15:59:18

Apache isn't the only decent webserver, and I doubt it's a good choice for your PC - too bloated.

graysky · 2010-10-08 16:02:06

brebs wrote:

Apache isn't the only decent webserver, and I doubt it's a good choice for your PC - too bloated.

What about lighttpd?

igndenok · 2010-10-08 16:13:20

graysky wrote:

brebs wrote:
Apache isn't the only decent webserver, and I doubt it's a good choice for your PC - too bloated.
What about lighttpd?

And nginx!

Pawlerson · 2010-10-09 13:00:41

MMAMailMagazine wrote:

I was thinking of using it as a web server.
I am open to suggestions on any OS. My main priority is speed and efficiency as you can see my machine is really old.
Is NetBSD faster than FreeBSD?

I'd use Arch with some very light environment set up, because it's very easy to maintenance and it uses Pacman which is great package manager. As for speed Arch should be very fast and you have the choice to use the newest and the greatest kernel or well tested a little older one called LTS. As for performance configuration has probably the biggest impact. Arch, FreeBSD and NetBSD should work very well when properly configured and there's no straight answer which is the fastest. I consider it's Arch, because Linux is the most common operating system used on servers. Btw. does 'MMA' in your nick has something to Mixed Martial Arts maybe? Just curious.

axel668 · 2010-10-09 13:50:18

lagagnon wrote:

With just 128MB of RAM you would be limited to a very light window manager (no desktop environment) in either case. I wouldn't know which is faster, probably very similar but it wouldn't take too much time to try them both and make a proper decision.

My Arch with XFCE needs only 75M after boot, and there's lighter alternatives like JWM (used by Puppy and DSL) or fluxbox, even Openbox / LXDE is about 10M lighter than XFCE. Considering you could limit your desktop environment to, let's say 64M RAM, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to run Arch on that hardware spec. Biggest challenge will be to find a decent browser with low memory usage, unfortunately both Chromium and Firefox are REAL memory hogs.Opera and K-Meleon might be worth trying (Opera is also very good at low bandwidth internet connections).

Last edited by axel668 (2010-10-09 13:50:59)

Allan · 2010-10-09 14:39:31

Does the latest Arch installer even work with 128MB RAM?

mhertz · 2010-10-09 16:06:13

dunno, but the wiki's beginner's guide(though unofficial) lists the following:

Tip: The memory requirements for a basic install are:

* Core : 128 MB RAM x86_64/i686 (all packages selected, with swap partition)
* Netinstall : 128 MB RAM x86_64/i686 (all packages selected, with swap partition)

Gullible Jones · 2010-10-09 22:02:38

I don't see why CLI Arch shouldn't work with 128 MB. Slitaz works with 128, and it's got XVesa and LXDE.

(IMO the primary limit on Linux on old machines is user friendliness. If that's not a concern, you can get it to run on almost anything.)

Army · 2010-10-09 22:18:59

Of course Arch works with less than 128mb of ram, but the install cd doesn't by default. Afair there was an option called something like lowmem for the install cd to work with machines with less ram. Does this option still exist?

thestinger · 2010-10-09 22:51:13

it might not exist anymore but an old install cd should work fine

urist · 2010-10-09 23:29:03

I don't know about 128, but a CLI works fine with 145.

Right now, I'm idling at 36/145MB according to htop. Running FreeBSD with basically nothing running - OpenSSH, an SSH connection to my main server, and finch.

I can't run any sort of X session on this beast. LXDE was molasses. Xmonad was similarly laggy. I wiped the drive after that and installed FreeBSD. Perhaps I'll reinstall Arch and just forego all of X like I'm doing now - package management with pacman is better (to me) than pkg_add.

Last edited by urist (2010-10-09 23:30:12)

Teho · 2010-10-10 09:05:56

I have installed Arch linux in laptop from year 2001 with 128Mb of ram. Installation went fine, there was no problem with LXDE, I could start all the basic lightweight apps at the same time and everything worked fast. Only problem was the internet browser, no luck there.

Themaister · 2010-10-10 14:22:11

Running just the console on my Wii with archii, I idled at 10MB ram usage.

emory · 2010-10-10 16:11:06

As a standalone no-X11-sits-on-the-floor-web-server that machine will perform about the same across all options with some tuning.

OpenBSD still supports very old architectures like sun4 and sun4c which are very low memory systems by today's standards.

I think Apache would run fine on that system and actually be quite capable if you pay attention to the configuration of whatever kernel you're using, apache, and any other services you plan to provide.

Many users have an instinct to throw more hardware resources at a problem because they've been conditioned for years to do that every time Microsoft releases an OS. You can pull a lot of performance out of a Celeron at that clock speed and even with that much RAM.

There are many critical network infrastructure devices on the Internet in use today that are using that same CPU and 128MB.

z0id · 2010-10-10 22:05:02

I used to run WinXP on a machine w/ 128 MB ram, and it was usable. I think arch will do fine with some light apps; and you get loads of packages to choose from.

Last edited by z0id (2010-10-10 22:05:37)

hitest · 2010-10-11 16:14:40

I'm running Arch on an old PIII 667 MHz IBM 300PL with 256 MB RAM. I've also used FreeBSD on the unit. From my experience Arch seems to run leaner on the unit (using the same DE).

paperhats · 2010-10-19 03:28:51

I had been using a P3 Coppermine @ 1100 MHz with only 128 MB RAM as a (r)torrent box and it handles things ok up to about 200 torrents (80% flac, 20% mkv). So, whatever that means/translates to : ) Now i'm using an Eee PC 701 (630/900 MHz, 512MB RAM) for that job due to the extra ram which means i can serve pages with nginx and do a few other things at the same time. Unless the installer needs more ram than it used to about a year ago (does it?), 128mb shouldn't stop you from installing. If it does, you could install using another pc and then boot with the other...

Also, i suggest looking at lighttpd or nginx like others have suggested. The former is easy to set up : ) Good luck.

McDoenerKing · 2010-10-19 07:40:15

There's a blogger, who installed arch on even worse Laptops

Look here for inspiration: http://kmandla.wordpress.com/hardware/

cactus · 2010-10-19 08:30:45

MMAMailMagazine wrote:

I have a very old machine (400Mhz Celeron with 128Mb RAM).
Which would run faster Arch Linux or FreeBSD?

FreeBSD would run fine, but if you want newer versions of some packages, it will be slow to install them from ports (source compile on a slow cpu with small amount of ram could take a while -- depending on what you want to build).
Binaries will work fine via pkg_add -r, but not sure if the versions will be up to date enough (i generally just use ports myself).

OpenBSD might be a better option (as someone stated above). They tend to use ports as a way to update their binary snapshots, so
while openbsd itself may lag a bit behind with regard to versions of things, you will at least be up to date with regard to their binaries.

If you don't mind waiting a bit for things to build (nginx/apache/etc), then FreeBSD would be a fine options. It is a great OS.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-10-08 14:45:37

Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#2 2010-10-08 14:51:58

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#3 2010-10-08 14:52:47

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#4 2010-10-08 14:56:10

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#5 2010-10-08 15:47:37

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#6 2010-10-08 15:52:01

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#7 2010-10-08 15:59:18

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#8 2010-10-08 16:02:06

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#9 2010-10-08 16:13:20

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#10 2010-10-09 13:00:41

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#11 2010-10-09 13:50:18

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#12 2010-10-09 14:39:31

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#13 2010-10-09 16:06:13

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#14 2010-10-09 22:02:38

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#15 2010-10-09 22:18:59

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#16 2010-10-09 22:51:13

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#17 2010-10-09 23:29:03

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#18 2010-10-10 09:05:56

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#19 2010-10-10 14:22:11

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#20 2010-10-10 16:11:06

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#21 2010-10-10 22:05:02

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#22 2010-10-11 16:14:40

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#23 2010-10-19 03:28:51

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#24 2010-10-19 07:40:15

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

#25 2010-10-19 08:30:45

Re: Arch vs. FreeBSD - Speed and Efficiency

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