# Is it works on this hardware?



## dragonerosso (Sep 12, 2022)

Hi guys. 
I have a old pc with pentium II mmx 300mhz 128mb ram. 
Can i install freeBSD 13.1 stabile on it?


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## SirDice (Sep 12, 2022)

Why 13.1-STABLE? Why not 13.1-RELEASE? You're probably not aware there's a difference. 

It's an old beast, 128MB might not be enough. Other than that, sure, it should be able to run FreeBSD.


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## dragonerosso (Sep 12, 2022)

I Could upgrade ram to 196mb probably


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## SirDice (Sep 12, 2022)

You might get by without X. What is it supposed to be doing?


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## covacat (Sep 12, 2022)

on my pi zero that does nothing and runs GENERIC kernel / UFS is 80-90MB active+wired
so 128-196 will do but you will have more fun with an arm board
also a lower electricity bill and no noise


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## CuatroTorres (Sep 12, 2022)

SirDice said:


> Why 13.1-STABLE? Why not 13.1-RELEASE? You're probably not aware there's a difference.
> 
> It's an old beast, 128MB might not be enough. Other than that, sure, it should be able to run FreeBSD.


It's easy to imagine that Current is the development branch and Stable is the production version if you're coming from a Linux base.

Solve your doubts here:








						Chapter 24. Updating and Upgrading FreeBSD
					

Information about how to keep a FreeBSD system up-to-date with freebsd-update or Git, how to rebuild and reinstall the entire base system, etc




					docs.freebsd.org


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## sko (Sep 12, 2022)

i386 has become a Tier 2 architecture with 13.0, so don't expect everything to work smoothly and/or OOTB anymore and especially not in future releases.

There is really no reason to still run anything meaningful on such old and outdated hardware, especially because practically any sub-30$ single-board-computer will outperform that P2 by orders of magnitude while using only a fraction of the energy that door stopper would consume at idle.

For purely nostalgic reasons to 'just run' some old and heavily underpowered hardware, maybe NetBSD would be the better choice. Especially when it comes to memory footprint, NetBSD can be stripped down to insanely low figures (for todays standards...). It's really not just a joke that NetBSD could run on a toaster...


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## K5KGT (Sep 13, 2022)

CuatroTorres said:


> and Stable is the production version if you're coming from a Linux base.



... Exactly!  20+ years of chasing Debian Stable, and it was _quite_ confusing that I wasn't supposed to jump straight on Stable here.

But I definitely agree wtih sko, lay your hands on a Raspberry Pi 4 or similar type board and you'll have a far better platform.  I have several running FreeBSD now doing various chores.  It's fun to reuse/repurpose old hardware sometimes, but often times not practical in the long run.  (energy/performance/noise in this case).

Have fun!


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