Lotsa FreeBSD

I got a fit-pc machine the other day The first impressions are not that good:

• While obviously the purchaser was in Europe, I got an American power cable (though the power transformer is luckily universal 110V-220V 50Hz-60Hz)
• There seems to be something loose in the transformer or the cord(s), since apparently it requires jiggling around to make it start. Will probably have to replace it all together.
• Installing Ubuntu with full graphical interface on this machine was a catastrophic waste of resources. The machine a) has only 256 MB of RAM and b) has an extremely slow CPU (500 MHz AMD Geode – this is way slower than what is in EEE PC). It swaps all the time while under GUI.

The machine comes preinstalled with Ubuntu, without sshd and without COM console enabled, so it absolutely requires a VGA cable & adequate monitor (I’ve got DVI) and USB keyboard+mouse (my mouse is USB, my keyboard isn’t). So after hunting for parts, I’ve enabled sshd and can finally disconnect the monitor, keyboard and mouse from it. I’m using it over the network, as it’s meant to be used (it’s got two ethernet ports).

The machine has a slow-ish 40 GB laptop drive:

Version  1.03       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    <del>Per Chr</del> --Block-- <del>Rewrite</del> <del>Per Chr</del> --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
fit-PC         456M  4005  97 21399  30 10026  16  4625  98 28422  23  89.2   1
                    ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
                    <del>Create</del>- --Read--- <del>Delete</del>- <del>Create</del>- --Read--- <del>Delete</del>-
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16 10623  97 +++++ +++ 16105  99 10953  99 +++++ +++ 13648  84

Anyway, I’m going to a friend’s place tomorrow and will use his external CD-ROM drive to install FreeBSD on it.