From 32 to 43

Disappointed? Saddened? Nostalgic? I’m trying to describe my reaction to Debian’s increased memory requirement.

It’s no surprise really, that the text-based installer on the business card CD wants 43Mb of memory to install. Mentally I had always put that number at 32Mb, which I really only inherited from working with Ubuntu for years.

Not so any more. Even as far back as a year ago, machines I upgraded from stable to testing couldn’t boot on 32Mb of memory. And the installer now says 43Mb is the bare minimum, officially.

It may be that there is a way to circumvent that — after all, the installer doesn’t quit, it just tells you that you’re on thin ice.

But I guess what that means is I need to invest in a couple of old sticks of PC66 … and stop whining about the old days. This is progress, take it or leave it. πŸ™‚

9 thoughts on “From 32 to 43

    1. Peter

      I don’t know what the minimum requirements for FreeDos are but it chugs along quite nicely in the 1 MB of RAM that my Commodore 286LT has πŸ˜›

      Reply
  1. Duncan Snowden

    It is a little sad, though. I remember when I bought a 32Mb stick for my Amiga and it seemed like a ridiculous amount. It was, in a way: the system rarely used more than half of it.

    Mind you, I also remember when 32K (on a Sinclair ZX81) was a lot. I can’t be old; I’m not even 40 yet. ;-P

    Reply
  2. Pingback: Case in point: A 133Mhz photo frame « Motho ke motho ka botho

  3. Pingback: In praise of Debian 5 « Motho ke motho ka botho

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