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List:       fedora-devel-list
Subject:    Re: Fedora minimum hardware requirements
From:       Kevin Kofler via devel <devel () lists ! fedoraproject ! org>
Date:       2021-10-17 2:01:21
Message-ID: skg05j$12bj$1 () ciao ! gmane ! io
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Marius Schwarz wrote:
> Am 14.10.21 um 22:09 schrieb Zbigniew Jędrzejewski-Szmek:
>> I think that those numbers (20GB+2GB) are quite reasonable for the
>> stated purpose of "install and run successfully". I think that people
> The smallest device Fedora runs on, will propably be the Pinephone.
> 
> ATM..it has 3 GB Ram and a 32 GB storage. A 20 GB base install + taking
> journald logsizes into account,
> gives 8 GB of usable space.
> 
> I think any new reevaluation of "minimum" should really take mobil
> devices  into account.

I think that what really needs to happen is that we stop just accepting and 
shrugging off that these requirements keep growing over time, all the time.

If you compare with the requirements of Fedora Core 1:
https://fedoramagazine.org/celebrate-fifteen-years-fedora/
the minimum RAM requirement has increased by a factor of more than 10 
(compared to the minimum for graphical installation – there was also the 
Anaconda text mode that required 32 times less memory! And once installed, 
it was actually possible to use graphical desktop environments to some 
extent with even that).

Disk space requirements have also increased around tenfold (8.33 times if 
you compare the current "Fedora Workstation" to the old "Workstation", 10.53 
times if you compare it to the old "Personal Desktop").

There are several contexts in which bloat is a problem: older hardware, 
mobile devices, cloud servers, etc., but also simply for the time it takes 
to download an ISO. Unfortunately, most of the minimization efforts we had 
so far were focused only on one specific use case (mostly the cloud one) and 
relied on hacks completely stripping out functionality that other use cases 
need. Even as far as deleting the RPM database, which is an option only for 
a throwaway cloud image that never gets updated in place (i.e., a new image 
gets built instead).

I still remember how Red Hat Linux and (IIRC) Fedora Core 1 could be booted 
from a floppy (older Red Hat Linux releases even had a fully functioning 
rescue mode on the floppy, later ones could at least still boot a HDD 
install from the boot floppy, which is how I installed them, and in that way 
also boot the rescue mode). These days, the minimum boot image (know known 
as the netinst ISO) barely fits on a CD, and in Fedora 33 even exceeded CD 
size (https://pagure.io/minimization/issue/23). The Fedora 34 netinst image 
is still 450 times the size of a floppy!

        Kevin Kofler
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