Comment by tokyobreakfast

17 hours ago

RAM shortage or competent programmer shortage?

Can't get a Linux box to idle (or even install) under 512M these days.

Can't find a web developer worth a shit who doesn't think he needs a Python backend application server to print "Hello, world" when you could do this with a static page served with something like OpenBSD with two-digit RAM requirements.

It's not the RAM that's changed; it's everyone around the RAM.

A coddled generation who were taught that AWS is the Internet and live in abstractions certainly hasn't helped.

My NixOS SSH jump host server here idles at 234 MB of which 64 MB is systemd-journald (which I assume can be reduced with some settings of how much to keep in RAM).

  • >which 64 MB is systemd-journald

    why

    Windows NT was routinely run with 32 MB of RAM TOTAL and the event log is basically unchanged 30 years later.

    • Achtung, you will draw the ire of the systemd downvote zealots.

      Edit: Haha, withing a handful of seconds I got a downvote. :-D

You definitely can use Linux with few simple servers with 128 MB RAM.

Install can be tricky indeed, but if you have installed system, it's easier.

  • Yeah I'll need conclusive proof of that.

    • This is not difficult, you just need to run `htop` and perform addition of the RES column (which is in KB unless a unit is shown). Example:

          USER         RES▽ Command
          root       70436  systemd-journald
          root       14268  amazon-ssm-agent
          root       13508  systemd
          root       12160  systemd --user
          root       10240  sshd: root@pts/0
          root        9088  sshd: root [priv]
          root        8944  systemd-udevd
          root        8704  systemd-logind
          root        8320  nix-daemon --daemon
          systemd-ti  8192  systemd-timesyncd
          systemd-oo  7808  systemd-oomd
          root        6492  -zsh
          nscd        6272  nsncd
          messagebus  5888  dbus-daemon --system --address=systemd: --nofork --nopidfile -
          root        5888  htop
          sshd        4904  sshd: root [net]
          root        4736  sshd: sshd -D -f /etc/ssh/sshd_config [listener] 1 of 10-100
          root        2960  (sd-pam)
          root        2816  agetty --login-program login ttyS0 --keep-baud
          root        2192  dhcpcd: [privileged proxy]
          dhcpcd      1680  dhcpcd: [manager] [ip4] [ip6]
          dhcpcd      1468  dhcpcd: [BPF ARP] ens5 172.31.8.86
          dhcpcd      1168  dhcpcd: [control proxy]
          dhcpcd      1040  dhcpcd: [network proxy]

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