Linux should run passably on the lowest common denominator machine for
the majority of its userbase. That is an 8Mb 486. If you think everyone
can afford 32Mbytes I suggest you pay a visit to a local UK university,
pop out into the poor parts of europe or south america.
There is a point where sanity ceases to apply. Even with all the VM fixed
I don't think 2.2 is going to run sanely in 4Mbytes. That I consider sad.
With the allocators fixed it should run as well in 8Mb with 2.1.x as it ran
in 6Mb with 2.0
The other aspect of this is that Linux is moving into the thin-client, embedded and 'appliance' markets. Those are very very cost sensitive and if win* takes
half the ram of Linux we may well lose the market share we've gained.
So yes 8Mb is important, and I'd like to get 2.3.x working in 4Mb nicely
preferably 2Mb (with a very limited feature set obviously)
Alan
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