• Debian for Limited memory

    From Jeff Pang@21:1/5 to All on Tue Jul 16 23:40:01 2024
    My tiny vps from vultr has 512m ram only (it’s 2.5usd/m so cheap).

    Should I install debian 9 in it for this limited memory?

    Thank you

    --
    Jeff Pang
    jeffpang@aol.com

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  • From Michael =?utf-8?B?S2rDtnJsaW5n?=@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 17 00:00:01 2024
    On 17 Jul 2024 05:33 +0800, from jeff@simplemail.co.in (Jeff Pang):
    My tiny vps from vultr has 512m ram only (it’s 2.5usd/m so cheap).

    Should I install debian 9 in it for this limited memory?

    Definitely not, because Debian 9 is LONG out of support. (It's
    Freexian ELTS only since mid-2022, and ships packages that essentially
    were current in early 2017, so some seven years old by now.)

    Debian 12 will boot in 256 MB RAM (I think that's the minimum
    supported configuration on amd64, which your VPS very likely is) and a
    minimal system will consume a fair bit less than that after booting;
    so depending on what you want that VPS to do, 512 MB RAM should be
    plenty. And you can always add swap to it if you don't want to splurge
    on an additional RAM allocation.

    --
    Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 17 00:40:01 2024
    On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 21:59:04 +0000, Michael Kjörling wrote:
    On 17 Jul 2024 05:33 +0800, from jeff@simplemail.co.in (Jeff Pang):
    My tiny vps from vultr has 512m ram only (it’s 2.5usd/m so cheap).

    Should I install debian 9 in it for this limited memory?

    Definitely not, because Debian 9 is LONG out of support.

    This is definitely a cause for concern. Debian 10 is right near the end
    of its supported lifespan as well. But Jeff will need to weigh the
    needs of his applications (whatever the reason he's getting this VPS
    in the first place) vs. which versions of Debian support those applications
    vs. how much memory such a configuration will require vs. how long he
    intends to keep it running past end of life vs. how important security
    is to his applications.

    In short, there is no simple answer, especially in the nearly complete
    absence of ANY details from the OP.

    Debian 12 will boot in 256 MB RAM (I think that's the minimum
    supported configuration on amd64, which your VPS very likely is) and a minimal system will consume a fair bit less than that after booting;
    so depending on what you want that VPS to do, 512 MB RAM should be
    plenty.

    Maybe. It obviously depends on what the goals are for the VPS. A web
    server with PHP applications and a database will probably *not* work
    very well.

    And you can always add swap to it if you don't want to splurge
    on an additional RAM allocation.

    That depends on the type of VPS this is. Some kinds do *not* support
    adding swap space. You get your allocated RAM, and that's it.

    Given the price, I would assume this is one where there's no swap option.

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  • From Jeff Pang@21:1/5 to Greg Wooledge on Wed Jul 17 08:40:02 2024
    I plan to use it for MX backup.
    So the application ram is quite low (postfix consume few resources)

    Thank you all.

    On 2024-07-17 06:30, Greg Wooledge wrote:
    On Tue, Jul 16, 2024 at 21:59:04 +0000, Michael Kjörling wrote:
    On 17 Jul 2024 05:33 +0800, from jeff@simplemail.co.in (Jeff Pang):
    My tiny vps from vultr has 512m ram only (it’s 2.5usd/m so cheap).

    Should I install debian 9 in it for this limited memory?

    Definitely not, because Debian 9 is LONG out of support.

    This is definitely a cause for concern. Debian 10 is right near the
    end
    of its supported lifespan as well. But Jeff will need to weigh the
    needs of his applications (whatever the reason he's getting this VPS
    in the first place) vs. which versions of Debian support those
    applications
    vs. how much memory such a configuration will require vs. how long he
    intends to keep it running past end of life vs. how important security
    is to his applications.

    In short, there is no simple answer, especially in the nearly complete absence of ANY details from the OP.

    Debian 12 will boot in 256 MB RAM (I think that's the minimum
    supported configuration on amd64, which your VPS very likely is) and a
    minimal system will consume a fair bit less than that after booting;
    so depending on what you want that VPS to do, 512 MB RAM should be
    plenty.

    Maybe. It obviously depends on what the goals are for the VPS. A web
    server with PHP applications and a database will probably *not* work
    very well.

    And you can always add swap to it if you don't want to splurge
    on an additional RAM allocation.

    That depends on the type of VPS this is. Some kinds do *not* support
    adding swap space. You get your allocated RAM, and that's it.

    Given the price, I would assume this is one where there's no swap
    option.

    --
    Jeff Pang
    jeffpang@aol.com

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  • From Tim Woodall@21:1/5 to All on Wed Jul 17 10:20:02 2024
    On Tue, 16 Jul 2024, Michael Kj?rling wrote:

    Debian 12 will boot in 256 MB RAM (I think that's the minimum
    supported configuration on amd64, which your VPS very likely is) and a

    One annoying "feature" I've found if you create the disk image on
    another machine is that 'modules=dep' often won't boot and
    'modules=most' won't boot on low ram machines.

    There are obvious ways around this but it can be confusing, especially
    where you're booting blind or near blind and need it to at least get to
    a point where you can write a log for investigating on another machine.

    debian 12 will boot in 256MB happily although I think a 'modules=most'
    initrd needs 512MB on and64 at least.

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  • From Greg Wooledge@21:1/5 to Jeff Pang on Wed Jul 17 13:10:01 2024
    On Wed, Jul 17, 2024 at 14:36:21 +0800, Jeff Pang wrote:
    I plan to use it for MX backup.
    So the application ram is quite low (postfix consume few resources)

    In that case, I'd go for the most recent version of Debian you can
    run on whatever kernel you're using. Hopefully the current stable
    release (Debian 12), but you'll need to look into all the details
    of your VPS.

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