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user274
Asked: 2010-07-16 10:31:21 +0800 CST

Debian based 350mb server distro?

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I would like a linux distro for testing reasons. I want to mock a server which is why i am posting here instead of SU. It should have no GUI alike most (all?) VPS and use very little memory. As little as 64mb but i'll be running it as a 128mb VM.

Where can i find something like this? I seen host offer VPS with debian and ubuntu both as a 350mb image. I looked at debian's site and seen a 180 MB disto which i am worried cannot mock a server (maybe it can?) as i cannot find a software list. Then i see a 650mb image which is obviously for desktop users. I am unsure how to install it to use little ram and no GUI.

Does anyone know where i can get a debian base distro suitable for low memory and no GUI?

linux debian distro

4 Answers

  1. Define 'mock a server': what services does it need to run? This will definitely impact disk space necessary.

    You should probably look into debootstrap, which is used to create base debian installs from scratch. Then just add the packages you need and take out any you know you don't need.

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  2. Best Answer

    There was an older version of Ubuntu 8.04 designed for virtualization that comes in a nice compact ISO without all the bloat called JeOS

    I've used it several times and it's good if you can live with 8.04. You can apt-get anything that's missing (Apache, MySQL, etc.)

    http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/jeos/releases/8.04/release/

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  3. Damn Small Linux is an ultra-compact derivative of Debian.

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  4. The sites you're visiting are probably talking about RAM usage; I've never seen a VPS provider only provide ~350 MB of disk space.

    With that said, nearly every Linux distribution will work; a VPS is exactly like a real server, except for maybe the kernel. Then you have to look at what services you'll need to run; I've personally run a lighttpd web server with a MySQL DB with roughly 256 MB of RAM, and apache2 with a MySQL DB with roughly 512 MB of RAM, all of which can be tweaked so that they use much less RAM than what's set by default.

    I can tell you right now that Debian's default configuration with both apache2 and MySQL will likely not work well with 128 MB of RAM, but that's not to say that Debian sucks in low memory environments, all you'd have to do is tweak the settings on both services to use a lot less memory. I'm sure the same is true with any other distribution.

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