On 25 Jul 2023 08:18 -0400, from [email protected] (Greg Wooledge): >>> 3. Is it possible to reduce RAM consumption? And minimize it? Let's say up >>> to 100-200 mb? >> >> That depends on what you choose to run, and how. I would not >> recommend trying to do anything interesting on a machine with >> less than 256MB of RAM. That will not be enough for many common >> uses. > > According to <https://www.debian.org/releases/bookworm/amd64/ch03s04.en.html> > 256 MB is the absolute minimum amount of RAM for installing bookworm > on an AMD64 machine, using the text installer and no GUI packages. > > However, if one is trying to set up a low-memory server of some kind, > especially in a virtual machine or similar environment, that's an > entirely different line of questioning.
Agreed. I did some experimentation earlier with KVM VMs on an amd64 host and amd64 Debian 12.0; and was able to get it to install successfully down to 480 MiB RAM (below that the installer would fail to detect the virtio network interface), and the thus-installed system would boot with RAM reduced to 246 MiB (not a typo), but below that, it would fail to boot. That was with a bare minimums text-mode installed system and using the text-mode installer with a preseed file installing only the "standard" and "ssh-server" tasks. Definitely below the specified 256 MiB RAM minimum you'd be on your own. If you're looking to fit a system into less (at least on amd64), Debian might not be the distribution for you. -- Michael Kjörling 🔗 https://michael.kjorling.se “Remember when, on the Internet, nobody cared that you were a dog?”
