Running Linux in Low Memory

[Leo J Mauler]

While this is covered in the "Small-Memory HOWTO", I thought I'd mention
it anyway.

If you have a system with low memory, you can free up memory by removing
Virtual Consoles (the consoles you reach for command line interface).
According to the HOWTO, and I agree with it, you can get by without the
default 6 VCs, and if you cut it down to 3 VCs you save 4MB RAM.  If you
start off with 32MB or less, that is a lot of RAM now available for other
applications.

You remove Virtual Consoles by bringing up /etc/inittab in a text editor.

Look for a line like:

c1:12345:respawn:/sbin/getty tty1 38400

My system uses agetty instead of getty, but the line looks generally the
same.

There will be six lines, c1 to c6.  Comment out c4 to c6 to reduce the
VCs down to 3, and reboot.

You've just freed up 4MB RAM on your low memory system.

If you're running some system which won't be used much by a person, you
could even reduce it down to 2 VCs for a little more memory savings.