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dan

@ dan @upvote.au

Posts
10
Comments
3804
Joined
3 yr. ago

Aussie living in the San Francisco Bay Area.Coding since 1998..NET Foundation member. C# fan https://d.sb/Mastodon: @dan@d.sb

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • I've been using Linux for over 20 years and yet I've never tried Gentoo. Good idea. I'm not sure how well compilation would work on a 256MB system, but I could probably build a system in a VM locally then use Clonezilla to copy it to the production system.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • The 256MB RAM systems are from https://hosting.gullo.me/ and https://natvps.net/. It looks like the latter no longer sells the 256MB systems - their site shows 512MB as the minimum now.

    For most use cases, I use GreenCloudVPS or HostHatch. The GreenCloud "Budget KVM Sale" VPSes have 2GB RAM, 20GB space, 10Gbps network, for $15/year.

    I'm using the small 256MB systems because they're being provided for free for dnstools.ws in exchange for a link in the footer. Can't beat that price :D

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • That's an interesting idea that I didn't consider. .NET does seem to have some support for WebAssembly.

    Many of the current systems were provided by various hosts for free though, which is how I expanded to so many locations. The 256MB RAM systems are only a few dollars per year, so those hosts were happy to provide a few for free.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • In my case it needs to be a VM rather than a container (because that's what the hosting company offers), but Alpine is looking promising so far. No issues with booting from the ISO and installing it on a system with 256MB.

    I got my app running on Alpine too. Now I just need to update my Ansible playbook to handle Alpine, and do more thorough testing. Will look into it later in the week.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • I was using debian-installer in lowmem mode, but it OOMd during the install. I haven't tried adding swap yet though.

    The Trixie system that I did manage to setup was an upgrade from Bookworm. That's the one that's hitting the memory deadlock on boot.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • That's what I was thinking. I might try the cloud kernel (linux-image-cloud-amd64). It only has drivers required for VM platforms, so maybe the initramfs might be smaller? Otherwise I could build a custom one with just the things I need (only ext4 and swap, only drivers for KVM, etc).

    I'm trying Alpine as well, which looks promising.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Interesting! I wonder why I was hitting the memory deadlock on boot, but yours booted OK.

    I might run a local VM, use dietpi, then clone the resulting VM to the hosting provider using Clonezilla.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • I'm currently trying Alpine, but I'll try this out too!

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • The 25 locations are a bare minimum Debian installation with just my app, SSH (for management), Certbot (for TLS certs), and a few other utilities (ping, traceroute, mtr) added. The app uses ~60MB RAM so it's not an issue.

    The site accesses each location using gRPC over a persistent connection.

    The code is open-source if you're curious: https://github.com/Daniel15/dnstools

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Some are from https://hosting.gullo.me/. They even still offer 128 MB for $3.50/year, or around $2/year during Black Friday :). These are OpenVZ so they're not an issue though.

    Some are from https://natvps.net/ but it looks like they no longer offer them for sale - their lowest is 512MB RAM now.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Thanks for the link!

    I'm trying Alpine locally in a VM with 256MB RAM, and so far so good. I got my app successfully cross-compiled using musl-gcc, rsync'd it over, and it starts on the VM with no issues. Now I just need to figure out all the stuff around it (like certbot) and do some more thorough testing. I use an Ansible playbook to deploy to the Debian servers, so I've got to update it to handle Alpine too.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • I've installed Debian Buster, Bullseye and Bookworm on these systems from the netinst ISO, with no tweaking needed. Trixie is the first release where I've been unable to do this, and even upgrading the system doesn't work (hits a memory deadlock on boot).

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Does it support a server installation (no GUI)?

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • Even if I avoid the installer (e.g. by cloning an existing system, or by installing an older version of Debian then upgrading it), and have swap space, the kernel hits a memory deadlock on boot. I suspect it's deadlocking before swap is initialized.

  • Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

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  • I've considered this, it just might be a pain to keep up to date with kernel updates. I guess I could create an appropriate config and then automate the builds.

    I also forgot that Debian has a cloud-specific kernel (linux-image-cloud-amd64) which excludes a bunch of drivers. I'll try that out too.

    The other thing on my list to try is mmdebstrap with a basic Debian install, using runit or openrc instead of systemd.

  • Linux @lemmy.ml
    dan @upvote.au

    Is Debian on 256 MB RAM no longer possible?

  • Google I/O 2026 And Its Consequences

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  • Stop accepting free with ads as a way to use things you really care about.

    A lot of people can't afford to pay for every website and webapp they use. Not everyone is in a first-world country with a lot of discretionary income.

    WhatsApp (pre Meta acquisition) used to charge $1/year and even that was a barrier for a significant number of users, particularly in developing countries.

    The only free models that work are either to use ads, to have a freemium service (where the paid users subsidize the free users), or to have someone else cover the cost for you (which is how it works on most Lemmy servers for example).

  • Nextcloud or Seafile alternatives?

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  • Interesting - I've never heard of this but it looks useful. Love that it supports OIDC. Thanks for the link.

  • Nextcloud or Seafile alternatives?

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  • Syncthing is pretty good.

    I tried seafile and it kept going down and corrupted a lot of files after an unexpected server shutdown. It shared the corruption to all the local files on every app/pc I had it shared to.

    This sounds like an issue with your server rather than with Seafile specifically. Was the unexpected shutdown due to a power outage? You should have a UPS so that it can properly shut down during outages. You'll hit similar issues with any other system otherwise.

  • ‘We need to do our due diligence’: Harlingen [Texas] approves 120-day data center moratorium

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  • 4.6 million gallons or water

    How does it consume this much water? I thought modern water cooling systems were all closed-loop systems?

  • KDE @lemmy.kde.social
    dan @upvote.au

    Spectacle export to SFTP?

  • Selfhosted @lemmy.world
    dan @upvote.au

    Lighter weight replacements for Sentry bug logging

  • Linux @lemmy.ml
    dan @upvote.au

    Help with powertop idle state output

  • Selfhosted @lemmy.world
    dan @upvote.au

    Looking for simple analytics (similar to Plausible) that supports cookies

    upvote.au /post/42206
  • Selfhosted @lemmy.world
    dan @upvote.au

    ATX case with room for 5 hard drives

  • Selfhosted @lemmy.world
    dan @upvote.au

    NAS vs larger server

  • networking @sh.itjust.works
    dan @upvote.au

    10Gbps internet connection isn't maxing out 2.5Gbps network card?

  • Selfhosted @lemmy.world
    dan @upvote.au

    My 10Gbps Home Networking Closet

  • Lemmy Support @lemmy.ml
    dan @upvote.au

    Can't search for communities in Mastodon