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Yes, we can do that since at least 1998¹. Linuxrc has some parameters to tune behavior depending on available RAM:²
MemLimit Amount of free memory in kB below which linuxrc will ask the user to set up a swap partition. MemLoadImage Amount of free memory in kB below which linuxrc will not copy the root image into RAM. MemYaST Amount of free memory in kB below which linuxrc will start YaST in text mode. MinMemory Amount of memory in kB below which linuxrc will refuse to start. Defaults to 0.
The values are defined in this file AFAICT: https://github.com/openSUSE/installation-images/blob/master/data/initrd/them...
The settings can also be passed to linuxrc on the command line when booting. So should be fairly easy to run a set of installations with different amounts of memory from DVD and NET images to check what the limits are nowadays. Carlos, since you have the problem at hand, would you like to help with that?
I have tried with the NET installer media, build 164. I know that other builds may vary. I try from 512MB in 128MB granularity, using the same virtual machine under vmware player, deleting the hard disk for each test. These are manual tests and take hours each, so I can't go finer. I attempt the graphical installer, trying the text mode install only if it starts automatically. ** The minimum for the NET installer is 896MB RAM, probably somewhat less. 768 MB is the size recomended by vmware for opensSUSE 64 bits install, but it fails. YaST is very slow on each screen. Failures are not clear, but some of the childs die, at the screen to choose packages, grub and other settings, or perhaps at the partition choices. 512 MB fails (but it is the minimum size reccomended by vmware for opensSUSE 64 bits), crashing both graphical and text mode installs before the first screen (and it is very slow to do so). However, it is possible to jump to a text console while YaST is trying to start and create a swap partition with fdisk and mkswap. Then we have to reboot and add that swap manually - the installation crashes before it has a chance to add swap automatically. Or enable it at boot (Thanks to Christian Boltz for this info): https://en.opensuse.org/Linuxrc says there's a boot parameter AddSwap which you can use, for example AddSwap=/dev/sda1 ** The minimum for the full DVD install is 768MB I tried 640 MB. It gets to the license display in minutes, then stalls. I can't switch to a text console to find out what happened. So I reboot and switch to VT2 as soon as I can, creating a partition table and one swap partition with fdisk, and I activate it manually, without reboot. - From that instant YaST in graphical mode is reasonably snappy and I can finish the installation just fine. I have not tried 512MB (full DVD), but guessing from the Net install and the above test, it would require creating and enabling swap as soon as possible. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. (from 13.1 x86_64 "Bottle" at Telcontar) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.22 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAlfcGkoACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UwmwCfcr98/pKdgeugjUM35H2PvkkY 3O8An3mlFoS6ACyTXj97FVU6HYvoQwKp =uwJ5 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----