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Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

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aliweb
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Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#1 Post by aliweb »

Hi,

I have a VPS with 512MB RAM on which I plan on hosting a website. Right now I am using Debian 7 x86 (instead of CentOS) as I want to keep RAM usage to minimum. Because later I will be installing nginx and MySQL so I want my site to perform better as much as possible.

I have the option to install Debian 8, shall I go for it? Do you think there are advantages of using Debian 8 instead of 7 like some improved security and memory management etc.?

Thanks

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acewiza
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#2 Post by acewiza »

9, number 9...
-Lennon/McCartney "Revolution 9"
Nobody would ever ask questions If everyone possessed encyclopedic knowledge of the man pages.

aliweb
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#3 Post by aliweb »

acewiza wrote:9, number 9...
-Lennon/McCartney "Revolution 9"
Debian 9 is not available for install.

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dasein
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#4 Post by dasein »

aliweb wrote:I have the option to install Debian 8, shall I go for it?
Yes.
aliweb wrote: Do you think there are advantages of using Debian 8 instead of 7 like some improved security and memory management etc.?
It isn't a question of "think." Debian 7 (Wheezy) goes EOL in 9 months and will not longer receive security updates.

tl;dr: You'll have to install 8 either now or a few months from now. Unless you have some odd emotional attachment to doing extra work for no particular reason, your choice is clear.

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GarryRicketson
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#5 Post by GarryRicketson »

I am using Debian 7 on one server. (but not VPN) It works fine.
dasein> It isn't a question of "think." Debian 7 (Wheezy) goes EOL in 9 months and will not longer receive security updates.
I have all ready
started another server, in preparation for when the Debian 7 support runs out.
Post by aliweb »Debian 9 is not available for install.
Yes it is available:
https://www.debian.org/distrib/
dasein>>tl;dr: You'll have to install 8 either now or a few months from now.
Not really, you can also install a different OS, to a server , it does not have to be
Debian 8 or 9, or even Debian, but that is up to you to decide.

My server is for the birds :mrgreen:

Wheelerof4te
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#6 Post by Wheelerof4te »

If it's for a server only, you might wanna consider FreeBSD too. I for one would love to try it one day. As Garry mentioned, you are not tied to only one distro.
EDIT: Just saw Gary is using OpenBSD :) It is a hardened version of FreeBSD.

aliweb
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#7 Post by aliweb »

Wheelerof4te wrote:If it's for a server only, you might wanna consider FreeBSD too. I for one would love to try it one day. As Garry mentioned, you are not tied to only one distro.
EDIT: Just saw Gary is using OpenBSD :) It is a hardened version of FreeBSD.
FreeBSD is what I originally planned but this hosting provider doesn't has FreeBSD in list of OS install. Although you can install your own OS but I have never used Linux/Unix before so I am a bit skeptical.

Wheelerof4te
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#8 Post by Wheelerof4te »

I heard they have good documentation. Check out their handbook:
https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO88 ... /handbook/

Other than that, your best bet at server distros are CentOS (since RedHat is not free) or Debian.

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GarryRicketson
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#9 Post by GarryRicketson »

Anyway, if you are set on using Debian, I agree with Dasein, it would be better to use Debian 8, which is all ready "old stable", if you stay with Debian 7 you will need to do something in 8 or 9 months, with Debian 8 you will have the security support for a few
years.

lbuiyzxl
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#10 Post by lbuiyzxl »

Do you think there are advantages of using Debian 8 instead of 7 like some improved security and memory management etc.?
I believe 8 is more memory management improved than 7.
Such as zram,zswap,etc(but I don't know more).
I'm sorry for my bad English skills
I'm don't want to be a nuisance.

NoobProgrammer
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#11 Post by NoobProgrammer »

If you want to do Linux severs, I'd recommend Gentoo.

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None1975
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#12 Post by None1975 »

NoobProgrammer wrote:If you want to do Linux severs, I'd recommend Gentoo.
Man, you kidding?
OS: Debian 12.4 Bookworm / DE: Enlightenment
Debian Wiki | DontBreakDebian, My config files on github

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RU55EL
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#13 Post by RU55EL »

Hey, while Gentoo is not the easiest OS to install, it is very configurable - meaning that you could build the OS with what you need and just what you need. A good thing if you only have 512MB RAM, and lots of spare time to configure the build.

vbrummond
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#14 Post by vbrummond »

Since Debian 6 era, Linux has peaked in ram usage. You might as well use the latest. Your ram usage is all workload dependent.
Always on Debian Testing

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debiman
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#15 Post by debiman »

well your choice is clear (debian 8 aka jessie), but just a comment:
if you install debian without a graphical desktop (as it should be on a server), i don't think it makes a lot of difference which version you install.
also remember to use nginx instead of apache, it's much easier on resources.

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Lysander
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#16 Post by Lysander »

RU55EL wrote:Hey, while Gentoo is not the easiest OS to install, it is very configurable - meaning that you could build the OS with what you need and just what you need. A good thing if you only have 512MB RAM, and lots of spare time to configure the build.
Maybe we should just reply to every thread with "install Gentoo".

DebbyIan
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#17 Post by DebbyIan »

I would suggest also stripping the kernel to a bare minimum.

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RU55EL
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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#18 Post by RU55EL »

Lysander wrote:
RU55EL wrote:Hey, while Gentoo is not the easiest OS to install, it is very configurable - meaning that you could build the OS with what you need and just what you need. A good thing if you only have 512MB RAM, and lots of spare time to configure the build.
Maybe we should just reply to every thread with "install Gentoo".
Maybe we should not reply to every thread?

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Re: Debian 7 or 8 on 512MB RAM

#19 Post by Head_on_a_Stick »

debiman wrote:if you install debian without a graphical desktop (as it should be on a server), i don't think it makes a lot of difference which version you install.
I would respectfully disagree :)

The newest version of the Debian stable release includes all the latest upstream bug fixes (rather than patches applied by the Security Team) and Debian stretch now offers significant protection against ROP attacks [1] and is thus _much_ more secure than previous releases.
deadbang

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