Minimum req problems? (mmx266/96mb)

kosmarnik

Hi!
I know that the requirements are 128mb ram, but I only have 96mb, can't fit more as it's a laptop (and a nice one: Sony Vaio 505fx :) I'd hate if I could not find a use for it)
Could someone clear up what problems I might run into with a hard drive install and only 96mb?

I plan on using pfSense as a multiwan gateway for 4x3mbit wifi connections with usb wifi adapters and usb ethernet adapter.
I could leave the qos and processing to my current Mikrotik setup if it would help.

jimp

With that low of specs, I'm not sure you could fill up 4x3Mbit. The CPU alone might be OK (A WRAP device is that CPU speed and can push ~20-25Mbit or so) but the USB devices will hurt you, especially wireless since there is some encryption involved, and that is probably USB 1.1 which maxes out at 12Mbit/s.

kosmarnik

@jimp:

With that low of specs, I'm not sure you could fill up 4x3Mbit. The CPU alone might be OK (A WRAP device is that CPU speed and can push ~20-25Mbit or so) but the USB devices will hurt you, especially wireless since there is some encryption involved, and that is probably USB 1.1 which maxes out at 12Mbit/s.

Thanks for the reply.

Well, you're right about USB 1.1, but I already ordered a 4 port usb 2.0 pcmcia card, so I should be ok with the bandwidth using it.
From my experiences with Mikrotik, 266mmx should be ok or very close if I don't do any fancy stuff with the traffic, and here I don't plan to. Just a simple multi-wan gateway.
What about the memory? 96mb is almost there :) What trouble can I expect?
It really would help to know up front, to save me from hours of fruitless debugging.

BTW, Mikrotik doesn't support USB wifi, and running meters of antenna cable gets old fast, so I'll ditch it and switch to antenna mounted wifi adapters. That's a free boost in signal right there.

Cry Havok

You may want to read this sticky at the top of this forum about minimum memory requirements.

kosmarnik

@Cry:

You may want to read this sticky at the top of this forum about minimum memory requirements.

Yes, I have. That's the first thing I read and also made me post.
It says: "It works fine under some limited circumstances" which implies that it works albeit with come caveats.
Hence my question. I'm sure somebody has tried that already and found out the problems were and could report them.

I would have tried already, but I'm having immense trouble making it boot from USB (it boots up to the menu, and depending what I choose I get different crashes :) ) and I ditched optical drives a long time ago, duh.