My first X86 machine running Linux was a 386DX&#x2F;33 with 4MB of RAM. It booted the Linux 0.96 kernel (IIRC) just fine and I also used X on that machine. As far as I remember, I did have 16MB swap as well to make things actually usable, but the kernel itself would boot just fine with just the 4MB RAM.
If memory serves me right, it was actually possible to get the kernel to boot with as little as 2MB in those days, but that was the limit.<p>I remember a custom kernel compile on this machine took a little over 24 hours. :-&#x2F;