(Warning, I'm an old-time Linux user and my rantings may not be so interesting for everybody :-) ... ... My box is a 16MB Linux 486 PC, by making the kernel as small as possible and using fvwm1 I'm doing fine. xemacs, tons of xterms (all running -sl 1024 scrollback buffer), compiles, ddd, intranet web server (wn), http proxy, ntp proxy, firewall. Everything always running, and used, 24*7. NO problem. XEmacs is slow to start, but fine after that. Netscape is really too slow to start. When it's running it's fine, although I hate using the mouse more and more so I prefer lynx now (must faster anyway). This box has run Linux since April/May 1992, and I have used it full time (in my job) since June the same year. It is incredible what you can do with 16MB in Linux, *if* you just shrink the kernel a bit and avoid the bloated window managers and all that. And how reliable these old boxes (1991 model) are.. I've had uptimes over a year. Only a power break can stop it. I have this 32 MB Indy in the corner, it was always much slower to work with (I could type faster than XEmacs could update the screen). Haven't had it powered up for a year or two, except for checking up on the clock battery. On the road I use a 20MB 486 laptop, XEmacs runs fine there as well. I *am* going to (finally) get a new machine, not because of the fact that I can't add more memory to the box (no problem, hey I compiled Mozilla!), it's because 1) you can't buy any decent vga adapters for ISA anymore (and my old tseng's slow xterm scrolling is finally getting on my nerves), and 2) I'm doing more and more of really big compiles and I'm getting a bit impatient. The new boxes seems to be quite fast now.. (on the other hand I doubt they can build xemacs in two minutes yet, as I did on an SGI PChallenge.. or maybe they can? Hm, should get myself an SMP box I think). Of course it matters a bit that the other guys in the next offices are finally getting ahead of me, as they now have new fast Linux PCs instead of those slow bloated Suns, Indys and HPs they used to have (my PC was better than any of them). Small is fine, but if the executable only loads a few of its (many) disk pages anyway then that *is* small.. Linux VM is good. - Tor