So I’m dabbling around in selfhosting, and now am just running on a shitty old laptop. There for I’m looking for the most resource friendly Linux when it comes to idle’ing and doing nothing. As most my vm’s are on idle and are only used periodically. But it needs to also be perfomant. So just like debian… Yet…
I know Ubuntu, debian, they are pretty easy to use. Debian is lightweight, yet it’s still heavy. As I tend do make a vm for every new application to manage it easy. Home assistant, adguardhome, nextcloud, etc… Their Ubuntu’s and debian’s on idle are resource intensive against what I recently found… Turnkey Linux.
Turnkeylinux is pretty much debian but stripped down. It uses less then half of what debian needs in resources, and on idle uses litterly a few mb’s of ram. Yet there is one important thing that simply does not want to work on it, and it’s Unbound. So as I want to get all my vm’s on the same distro, that option goes out the window.
So my question is, if not debian, what are other maybe more lightweight Linux’s that are recommended? Or should I just stick with debian as comments are full of it. Or do you know any other gems like turnkey? (centOS and other old, non alive Linux are not a option either.)
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You are running the VMs headless right?
Maybe you should look at ProxMox
Proxmox is Debian.
Alpine Linux, 200MB in size.
Alpine Linux is not a great suggestion for someone who doesn’t know Linux well, since the lack of libc can and does lead to occasional compatibility problems.
That’s why I setup a new vm for each program, if it works, perfect onto the next, if it doesn’t, delete vm, start over if I have to… No issue. 😅 I will Atleast look into Alpine
That’s the spirit. You know Debian already, Alpine will show you other ways to do Linux. You can also look at CentOS/RHEL or Arch and so on. They all have benefits. Alpine is just pretty awesome because it contains no garbage and is 100% POSIX compatible via musl, something the other poster /u/lilolalu doesn’t know of. She just tries to scare you off for the sake of sounding superior but has no knowledge of either glibc or musl. Don’t listen to people like her.
Pretty much every distro has a minimal version, including ubuntu. I think the better criteria for choosing a distro are release management, community support, and general architecture of package management etc.
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Minimal
https://www.debian.org/CD/netinst/
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Netboot
Etc
That’s why I setup a new vm for each program, if it works, perfect onto the next, if it doesn’t, delete vm, start over if I have to… No issue. 😅 I will Atleast look into Alpine
If you want to save on resources you should use containers instead of vm’s.
Doesn’t help if OP wants to try out different host OS for containers.
I do a lot of my docker on Debian, some on Ubuntu. Debian is perfect for it. Something like Fedora (or a relative of it) will be awesome too since Podman will be great with it.
OP just wants an excuse to not learn Docker, I have 10 containers running on a Orange Pi with 1GB of RAM, on Debian 11.
For the apps you are listing I would suggest simply spending an afternoon learning docker.
UnRaid may be exactly what you are looking for. It’s similar to proxmox, but UnRaid has a plugin called “Community Applications” where people make pre-configured Docker containers that most of the time only need the user to define a path for saving files (though some do need more configuration).
UnRaid boots from a USB to RAM. So it’s hard to get lighter weight than that! You don’t even “install” it, per se. You can pop it into a computer with an already installed OS, boot via USB, and then can boot the native OS as a VM in UnRaid, if you want. Then shut down, remove the USB, and reboot to the original OS as if UnRaid never existed. Now there’s caveats and pitfalls if you are not careful. Don’t go formatting drives if you do it that way or making major changes as it could affect the native OS install if you’re not careful. Im just letting you know it’s possible.
Using the built-in Docker in UnRaid, those services get dynamic access to the computer’s resources and have minimal overhead when idle. VMs, I believe, have more overhead. So this may allow you even more capability on an old laptop.
I’ve never used Docker before, but I now run Home Assistant, Plex, Immich photo backup, minecraft server, Trilium Notes, Blender, Cura Slicer, and a couple others all as Docker containers. All I did was click install, add path to folders, and then they were up and running!
One of my favorite things about how UnRaid works with Docker is that all your Docker containers are set up to be accessible on your network, by default, and can be viewed on any web browser with access to your network. When I want to show off a little, I pull up things like Blender on my smart tv. It’s a terrible user experience trying to use a remote as a mouse, but I’m able to “use” Blender on my TV it I so feel!
But mainly, I like to sit outside on nice days and have access to my computer from any device on my network. I’m working on making things accessible over vpn for me and a few services by reverse proxy for friends. But I’m still learning.
Search UnRaid’s Community Applications page for services you run and see how many are already available. https://unraid.net/community/apps
There’s also youtube videos on making your own programs available in UnRaid. You can also add personal Docker containers through Docker Compose.
Plus, UnRaid makes settings up VMs very easy. So, if you just want to have a program in a VM for ease of use, you can do that too!
Manjaro and docker
Dietpi - lightweight Debian
A good lightweight distro is Arch since you can customize it to exactly what you need. If you go that way and have trouble with installation, ArchFi can help a little.
But as others have said, what you actually want is docker. All of your concerns with it stem from your lack of experience using it. When your only tool is a hammer, it’s easy to see every problem as a nail.
AntiX, Zorin Lite, or Linux Mint Debian Edition are all pretty lightweight distros and beginner friendly.
Just run Ubuntu server. You don’t want something so stripped down it lacks the basics… that’s more for embedded applications or in some cases containers. Ubuntu runs fine with 512MB of RAM on a 386 from the 1980’s… that’s the magic of Linux.
It seems to me, by looking at several of OPs comment that you’re running the full desktop OS, with Gnome on it, and honestly that’s the reason you get the idle CPU and 1.5GB of RAM usage.
Do you want light weight the real answer is, use the server version of it without the UI.
What about ProtonOS, very small lightweight, I have 2 VM’s running in my VCentre using it, the rest are using Ubuntu.
Can you explain what you mean with lightweight?
Well it’s easy, comparing to a full bloated install of Ubuntu where ur cpu keeps Avaraging around 5% and 1.5gb of memory doing jack sh*t, or to say ‘idling’, doing nothing but run itself…
There are os’s out there like turnkey Linux that, when doing nothing run at 0% cpu usage, and 10mb of memory… So to say, turnkey Linux is… Lightweight.
Ubuntu’s install ISO is over 4gb, turnkey’s is less then 200mb. So ofcourse everything runs faster on turnkey…
I’m looking for similar Linux flavours like turnkey Linux.
DietPi. I have quite a few VMs running DietPi, very light, simple, “just works”!
I have to reluctantly use Docker which is cumbersome, awkward and confusing in comparison. A DietPi VM is simple and easy to run, use and more importantly, keep backed up. I really hate being forced to use Docker when DietPi exists and works!